STORIES
Poo Dog - Why our sculptures are roaming free in Cornish Parks
You may have seen one of our ‘Poo Dogs’ out in the wild, and wondered where they came from, so here’s some background on how the dogs ended up in your local green spaces…
Clean Cornwall is a CRCC project that has been working with Cornish communities for more than 15 years to tackle the issue of litter and waste in Cornwall.
Dedicated to reducing the presence and impact of litter and protecting our landscape, Clean Cornwall identified that dog fouling has become a huge issue in Cornwall’s otherwise beautiful green spaces. The Poo Dog campaign was created to tackle this issue: “The aim of this campaign is to celebrate those who always clean up after their dog, and to try a light-hearted alternative to signage, which can often be negative or completely overlooked.” says the Poo Dog Campaign lead.
The sculptures have been created almost entirely out of litter and waste collected from across the county, which again highlights the issue of waste in our ecosystems. The poo dogs were made in workshops with CRCC’s Learn Your Way and Work Your Way students from the Penzance and Truro provisions. Three teams of students were shown how to make the dogs in a Clean Cornwall workshop on their community engagement day. They then completed the sculptures independently and named two of them ‘Scooby Poo’ and ‘Piran’.
Working with other community projects is incredibly beneficial to these learners explains Anna, Education and Training Manager: “It helps show our learners they are part of a bigger community and that they have responsibilities and can make a difference.”
Once the dogs were created, they were given QR codes for their collars to allow the public to find out more about the project and the purpose of the sculptures. The Poo Dogs were then taken to their green spaces - areas identified as dog fouling hotspots by Clean Cornwall - with the aim of reaching repeat offenders and cleaning up our green spaces. Three of our dogs are still out encouraging owners to clean up after their pets and can be found at Coosebean Greenway and Daubuz Moors (Truro) and on the Prom in WherryTown (Penzance).
Not only does the project encourage the public to scan the QR code on the dog’s collars to find out more, but also to take a photo, tag us and #poodog to show their support.