Police Dispatch

Doo-Doo Don'ts

Foothills Area

May 6, 11:10 a.m.

A minor poop dispute became a full-blown feces feud when a woman refused to clean up after her dog, causing her angry neighbor to (reportedly) retaliate with a literal "smear campaign" involving dog poop on a doorknob, according to a Pima County Sheriff's Department report.

The dog's owner first called dispatch, asking to meet a sheriff's deputy near her apartment complex, where she told him she'd been walking her dog when one of her neighbors saw her pooch poop and asked whether she was going to pick it up—and the reportee refused.

At this point, she said, the neighbor started screaming and filming her with a phone, following the woman all the way to the parking lot while screaming that the dog-walker "was gonna get hers!" and "she wasn't done with her!" The neighbor even reportedly pushed her phone up to the car window, trying to film inside before the reportee (and her dog) drove away.

She told the deputy she physically couldn't pick up her dog's doo-doo due to recent surgery; besides, "Nobody in the complex picks up their dogs' waste."

Still, said the deputy, the reportee was actually the one at fault: It was illegal for her not to collect her dog's feces, while it was perfectly within the other woman's rights to film her. He advised her to stay away from that neighbor—and to thereafter find a way to pick up after her dog.

Unfortunately, the issue didn't end there: Later that day, the deputy was called to the dog walker's apartment because someone had smeared dog excrement on her front doorknob, and she was positive it was the neighbor—who denied guilt. The deputy believed she was lying but had insufficient evidence to cite her for vandalism.

The much-angered reportee demanded to see a sergeant, who did come speak with her—but only re-affirmed the reporting deputy's stance.

Eventually, the officers simply warned the women to avoid each other because they could get in trouble and "the whole situation was childish."