I buy mine in bulk from www.sacomat.ch, come on a handy roll with tie tops - cheaper than Migros.

Those bags look easier to tie than the ones supplied with Robidog which are straight across the top.
http://www.robidog.ch/eng_robidog.htm

But I suppose one shouldn't complain about bags which are free, though I guess not really free when you consider that you pay an annual fee at the Gemeinde if you have a dog (in our case it was 100 chf per dog). Now I wonder if that actually covers the cost of the annual supply of bags for my dog, not to mention the cost of maintaining the Robidogs (emptying them, replenishing the bag supply). The dog tax works out to about 27 rappen a day per dog.

__________________

Is that irrespective of the size of the dog?

Do you pay the same for a Yorkshire terrier as a St. Bernard?

I have 3 dogs at home in the United States currently living with my parents while we are living here.

The one thing I LOVE about Switzerland is people take their dogs EVERYWHERE!! I see dogs sitting in chairs in restaurants, dogs in IKEA, dogs in the supermarket.... only wished the United States could be so relaxed about having your pet with you... but the downside here is the amount of poop!

I hate to walk near the boxed planters on the sidewalk (tree planted with small dirt around and closed off with small stones/brick). Every dirt patch normally has 2-3 fresh turds just waiting to be stepped on. It does get annoying!!!

forgot to mention... when I do take my dogs out to dog friendly places (dog parks, dog beaches) in the United States I have a little poop bags attached to the leash!

Thanks for that Argus... you excited about you pup coming.... not long now.

I don't get why people buy poop bags, the ones from the robi-dogs are fine. I take them from the robi-dog and open them before putting on the dogs leads. That way I'm not farting around trying to get the thing open while surrounded by aroma of fresh turds

I'm completely with you on this, PlantHead.

Maybe in my past life I was a poo-policeperson. Today I went to Zug by bus/train with the Lab pup for her first time and came across a man (about 60 years old) picking up his dog's poo in a bag but leaving it in a bare flower bed next to the sidewalk. Before I could think about my actions or the pup's or my safety, I said loudly, "Was ist das?" pointing at the bag of sh*te.

He seemed to pretend not to understand German and said, "What are you saying?" So I launched into English: "There are so many dustbins around. Why do you have to throw it here?!"

"There aren't enough dustbins," he whined, so I pointed to the nearest one within sight.

"You know," he changed tack, "the city cleans the whole town every morning."

"What?!" I almost shouted. "Come on! You expect other people to pick up your crap?! Be civilised, please!" And I walked off realising at last that I wasn't doing any good.

I'm surprised Neuchâtel is still visible - it only snowed the other day and the amount of crap lying on top of it was immense. If that was only a couple of days work for the lazy b****ds, then the whole city should be buried in a year or two...
I hate going over the woods and finding lazy b*****ds dumping plastic bags of crap everywhere. If you're so squeamish that you can't deal with the crap your animal produces, then you're probably not emotionally ready for anything like a pet.
[/rage]

On the subject of dog poo, can I put it in the green garden waste bins? I think our back yard has been over fertilized.

Most likely not.

Not in the garden bins I don't think.

Where we live there are 3 regular none scoopers, 2 have Jack Russells and one a black cocker. The owners are elderly and sadly Swiss, and when I confronted one just completely ignored me . I spoke to my Swiss neighbour who said yes terrible is'nt it. Maybe I should leave the Rigi sized outputs of ours on there door step, as they seem to be happy to leave there dogs output near mine.

I'm going to have to extremely disagree, for the swiss-germans it is not game. They are not the same as the germans and there is not only large language differences but cultural ones as well. Perhaps to the untrained eye it might not be clear what these differences are but the same as it is hard to detect the difference from geneva to france if you don't know, it is diffucult to see the difference between germans and swiss-germans if you don't know.

Or to know where the line is between scottish and irish culture, its not the same but if you don't know the difference its hard to know.

Or Canadians to Americans. And so on and so on, every country, every area has it's own ways and if they are similiar and you haven't grown up in that culture you just won't understand the difference without alot of practice.

about the poo, in my area everyone picks it up. and I am really impressed with Switzerland for having those bags everywhere because if your not use to having a dog yet it is easy to forget to bring one. I imagine how bad it would be if they weren't there.

There are 2 robi-dogs within 100 meters of the path to my house, 2 of the 3 non scoopers walk right past them! I even caught Mrs Cocker letting her mutt pee on a kiddies sledge the other day, I did bang on the window but got ignored. I guess some people are just very lazy or completey ignorant, and it makes it more difficult for responsible dogs owners.

I had a mad neighbour in Lausanne who was the crusader for dog rights in the building... she would leave notes on people's doors if she heard their dogs crying. But she hated people: although she would scoop after her dogs, she'd tie up the bag and then throw it on the sidewalk or road!!! These bags were everywhere, and it was so disgusting because everything was totally preserved under the plastic!

Hi all,

We just opened our front door to find dog poo squarely in the middle of the mat outside. Our landlady is away, we don't know if it was deliberate - what should we do? Is this an offense here in switzerland?

Any advice would be really appreciated, thankyou!

On the dog poop conundrum, as a former removal man I once had the pleasure of delivery a household their goods to a very large house, walking across their drive I accidently proceeded to walk through a large poo, not notice and trail it all round the house - sadly no tip on that job!