Mary Allen
More and more signs on meadows warn: “No dog toilet here”. But how binding are such bans? A request to two animal rights lawyers brings light into the darkness.
Since she moved, Nicole Müller* and her Chico have had to run the gauntlet every morning to pee. Actually, she just wants to clean up her male dog before he gets his breakfast. “After all, we humans also want to go to the toilet before we eat our muesli,” says Müller. “In addition, the dog with a full stomach on the walk is threatened with a twisted stomach.”
She did the calculation without the local residents. “One neighbor doesn’t want dog urine on her hedge,” says Müller. “The other neighbor, in turn, has declared the meadow across the street to be a taboo zone, although I always pick up the droppings.” So the 34-year-old first has to guide her Chico hundreds of meters past hedges and meadows before he can finally lift his leg and do his big job. Müller does not know whether he is really allowed to do that there, by the tree on the street. “At least nobody has ever complained here.” The fact that on the fence to the meadow next to the tree there is a sign unequivocally forbidding the dog to do big business does not necessarily help to clarify the situation. “Slowly I really don’t know anymore where I can clean up Chico,” says the dog owner.
Regulated in Dog Laws and ZGB
Where can the dog go when he has to? And is dog grooming regulated by law? Confronted with these questions, lawyer and dog lawyer Daniel Jung refers to the cantonal laws on dog ownership. “They each provide for a fecal intake obligation that is sometimes designed differently in detail,” says Jung. The Zurich Dog Law of 2010, for example, states under the title “Removal of dog excrement” that a dog must be supervised when walking “so that cultivated land and leisure areas are not soiled by excrement”. Feces in residential and agricultural areas as well as on roads and paths should be “correctly removed”. The dog law of the Canton of Thurgau states that pavements and footpaths, parks, schools, play, and sports facilities, gardens, feeding meadows, and vegetable fields must not be soiled and the droppings must be removed correctly. In the Bernese dog law, on the other hand, it says succinctly: “Anyone who walks a dog has to remove its droppings.”
This public law obligation to record when cleaning dogs only affects the dog’s feces says, Jung. “This is because urine can hardly be ingested and, with certain exceptions, is also less of a problem if it is not occurring in large quantities.” This is also confirmed by Antoine Goetschel, lawyer and former animal lawyer in Zurich and President of the Global Animal Law (GAL) association. He also refers to the principle of proportionality and the legally protected “dignity of the creature”. “If a dog comes out of the block of flats in the morning and briefly releases water from an adjacent bush – and he obviously had no opportunity to do so during the night – this corresponds to an ‘animal’ need, which is necessary with a view to his dignity and the rule of law The principle of proportionality must be taken into account.”
In addition to the cantonal dog laws, when it comes to dog cleaning, the civil law principle applies that you must not harm anyone. “This would include peeing on sensitive objects such as vehicles, shopping bags, or bathing baskets,” explains Daniel Jung. This would then have to be enforced primarily under civil law with claims for damages.
Mandatory Signs are Expensive
The prohibition signs “No dog toilet here!”, which are available online or in hardware stores, are only partially legally binding, says Jung. “If a dog defecates in the meadow despite the sign and these feces is cleared away without leaving behind any damage, the dog owner is not threatened with any disadvantages.” The property owner is not allowed to distribute fines due to privately erected notice boards, as Antoine Goetschel also confirms.
According to Jung, anyone who wants to legally protect their property against dog cleaning needs a so-called civil law single judge order that prohibits unauthorized persons from driving on and entering the property under threat of a fine of up to 2,000 francs. “Such a ban usually has to be published in the official gazette and marked on-site with clearly recognizable borders and signs,” says Daniel Jung. “This is associated with some costs, but means that neither people nor dogs are allowed to enter the property.”
If Jung has his way, Chico can – unless the cantonal dog law stipulates otherwise – do his business on the unfenced-in meadow in the neighborhood if Müller clears up the pile and there is no judicial ban. This, even if the meadow is privately owned and a hardware store sign prohibits dogs from defecating.
Antoine Goetschel takes a similar view: If a property owner feels bothered by defecating dogs and their owners, he can counteract this by fencing in on his property or by issuing a general ban. In addition, he can also take legal action against unwelcome owners if he pleads for so-called “freedom of ownership” and sues for the omission in the event of a repeat incident. “This way is not cheap and risk-free either, it is necessary to prove the recurrence,” says Goetschel.
Whether a property owner wants to get involved in such legal transactions? Certainly less if he doesn’t feel provoked by the dog owner, says Goetschel. “And going to court over a dog peeing here and there on the hedge is unlikely.” Ultimately, it would have to be proven that the property owner actually feels bothered, for which objective standards of reasonable and correct people should be applied, explains Goetschel. “From a criminal point of view, very special circumstances would have to exist that owners of dogs defecating on the neighboring property would be convicted of trespassing or property damage at the request of the property owner.”
In the Forest, There is an Obligation to Collect Feces
All of this also applies to the forest, says Goetschel. It belongs to 250,000 different owners in Switzerland, with around 244,000 a large part of the private. In principle, the obligation to take up feces applies here. Finally, Goetschel points out that the landowners do not have to put up with dog excrement that is not picked up, even in the forest. In the case of repeat offenders, they could also consider a non-proprietorship lawsuit.
Nicole Müller is reassured. A clarifying conversation with the neighbors has failed. “We’re talking past each other.” At least she now knows how much it takes before she makes herself a criminal offense as a dog owner. “As long as I always pick up the droppings and don’t let Chico into fenced yards, there won’t be any trouble.” It is to be hoped that their neighbors know the proverb that Antoine Goetschel recalls about proceedings before authorities and courts: “Whoever fucks with a piece of dirt, he wins or loses, he walks away shitty.”