Why Is There So Much Dog Poop at Sandy Hook, NJ?

Sandy Hook visitors lucked into a rare treat on Sunday: spring-like temperatures in early March, a bluebird sky revealing Manhattan in the distance and dog crap as far as the eye could see.

About that last part...

Jersey Shore paw parents, I have nothing against your dogs. I love your dogs. I will need to be restrained from kneeling down and petting every single one of your dogs on the multi-use path. And if my dog wasn't such a capital-C Chihuahua about beach sand, I'd have him strutting alongside your puppers.

You're the Problem. It's You.

What I have a problem with is you, dear Jersey Shore paw parent, and the new spring dog turd blossoms you leave in your wake. I jogged a solid three miles of the multi-use trail and the piles were everywhere.

Besides the naked, heaping dung piles there were technicolored bags of plastic-wrapped crap. I imagine you thought to yourself, "What possible gift can I give to the Atlantic Ocean, this haunting expanse where my best childhood memories are rooted? I know! Dog poop and plastic!"

No, of course you didn't. You thought, "There's no garbage here and do I really want to stink up the car?"

No One Thinks, 'Wet, Hot, Fecal Contamination Summer'

This is where you take a big pause and think about where your dog turd — plastic wrapped or otherwise — is winding up: in the ocean your kids are swimming in this summer.

In August of 2023, the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection issued fecal bacteria advisories for 13 beaches in New Jersey, including eight in Monmouth and Ocean, according to the Asbury Park Press.

Nobody wants to swim around in poop water, and nobody wants to see a beach temporarily close because some dog owners couldn't be bothered with personal responsibility.