5 June—It’s not generally known that the Borough of Litchfield code (Section 32-1) decrees that “no horses, cattle or swine shall be allowed to go at large upon or depasture any highway within the borough.”

Nor is it generally known (Section 32-2) that “it shall be unlawful for any person owning, keeping or walking or in control of any domestic or farm animal to permit such animal to defecate upon any private property owned by another person [even Chabad Lubavitch of Litchfield County, Inc.] or public property, unless such person shall remove all feces so deposited by such animal before leaving the immediate area.”

Thankfully, however, that provision “shall not apply to any person walking or in control of an animal if such person is physically unable, by reason of disability, to remove said feces.” That’s also not generally known, of course. It’s essentially an elastic clause, alluding to but not required by the Americans with Disabilities Act.

Lacking closed-circuit TV cameras and other apparatuses of the surveillance state that before long will be even further eroding our already minimal privacy, it’s virtually impossible to enforce this ordinance, one of the few well-intentioned ordinances of the dreaded Borough of Litchfield (BOL).

The BOL could, like Tel Aviv and some other forward-thinking municipalities around the world, require dog DNA to be submitted by owners when they obtain or renew their faithful pets’ licenses in order for the feces-averse albeit none the less feculent Board of Warden and Burgesses (BOLBOWAB) to trace unremoved droppings.

Don’t count it out. Anywhere.

Anyway, a couple of summers ago it came to my attention that a person or persons unknown with (presumably) a dog or dogs unknown was or were not removing the feces deposited on the south-side pavement of West Street as required by ordinance and common decency, not too far from the COVID-inspired sidewalk dining facilities.

So, good, concerned BOL citizen that I am, I proposed a poster to scare the excrement out of the excremental scofflaws.

Sad to say, by the time the poster was ready to post on every available lamppost and Chabad door, the poop panic had passed.

Pity. But here’s the poster:

More recently, the town had a more practical idea, a dog waste station, which dispenses discreet black baggies and provides a receptacle for them after they’ve served their purpose. This one is by the post orifice on South Street. There’s another one in the town parking lot, convenient to the public convenience, for any dog that can’t sit on a toilet: