My neighbour was in his driveway yesterday when I was just starting to take my two dogs (chocolate labs) on a walk and they decided to pee on his nature strip. His first words to me were "you know there's a new law that dogs need to wee in the gutter" and he then proceeded to give me every reason under the sun why we should keep them off his nature strip, despite my protestations that it was public land and not 'his'.
I did some Googling and I can't find -anything- to suggest that there is a new Victorian law or even a council bylaw in this council region (Boroondara, VIC) that dogs must wee in the gutter.
Has anyone heard anything about this? Everything I read online actually said that owners must make sure their dog waste does NOT end up in the gutter as it will end up polluting storm water (as street drains go to storm water, not sewage).
The problem for my boys is that they are trained to go only on grass as we didn't want them weeing indiscriminately on footpaths etc, so we couldn't make them go in the gutter even if we wanted to -- and as any dog owner knows, you can't MAKE a dog go to the toilet anywhere. I guess we can try to guide them around the neighbour's nature strip so they don't get tempted to go there, but it makes me so angry when people try to claim ownership of public land in front of their house.
