I recently posted about the problem with dog poop in France and am still completely baffled by the lack of common sense here when it comes to picking up your dog’s poop. But I do have one theory as to why poop is left all over the streets and parks — to give French people jobs. Jobs, you ask? One word. Motocrotte.
WTF is that? Read on!
When I say jobs, I’m not talking about pet waste removal companies that are popular in many areas of the United States where someone comes in and *gasp*, get ready for it, actually picks up your dog’s poop for you. I’m talking about a good, old-fashioned, motor scooting type of contraption that does none other than, well, picks up poop from the lovely streets of Paris and beyond. Sorry, I meant to say aspirate. The Motocrotte is a motor scooter that aspirates dog poop in France with a nifty poop vacuum device that sucks up the poop behind the driver. Poof! Now you see it, now you don’t!
In French, crotte means “droppings” and in this sense refers to dog poop. So these lovely scooters, Yamaha XT 600s, are basically poop motor scooters that go around and make quick work of all the dog poop in various French cities — that the dog owners didn’t pick up on their own.
The PooperScooter. The MotoPoop. Hey, however you want to look at it, it just sounds nutty in English. Could you imagine one of these cruising the streets of New York City? Me neither.
Here’s a Motocrotte in action:
And what’s the driver called? I’m not even joking. The motocrotte is piloted by a motocrotteur. Aw, French language, you’re so cute. In English, I guess the guy who drives the Pooper Scooter would be called the Pooper Scooter man, the Poop Troop or maybe the Moto Poop Man. Having your dog’s poop motoscooted is totally glamorous and WAY cooler than just using a poop bag, right? Ben, oui!
So here’s a question. What came first, the inability of the French to pick up poop or the Motocrotte? Do people not pick up the poop because they’re relying on the Motocrotte to come lend a hand or did the poop problem get so out of control that the city implemented the Motocrotte to clean up? The latter sounds right to me… Either way, the Motocrotte project is a thing of the past. The project was halted in 2002 after it was determined that only 20% of the city’s poop was getting cleaned up for an exorbitant amount of money.
Apparently there were 100 motocrottes in Paris and they were driven by men clad in green suits. They picked up over 100 kilograms of poop per day! That’s IT?
Do these guys date?
“Hey, what do you do for a living?”
“Oh, I’m a hair stylist.”
“Cool, what about you?”
“I’m a motocrotteur. Yeah, I aspirate poop all over Paris.”
“Uh, ok. Great? Bye. Don’t call me. Ever.”
Ha.
Have I seen a Motocrotte? Thank god, no. There’s ridiculous and then there’s RIDICULOUS. I’d probably die laughing. But hey, anything to keep the dog poop in France situation under control, right? What’s next?
Haha, I love this! ONLY in France would this be a thing.
There seems to be a theme of animals pooping on #animaltales today lol. I guess if it keeps people in jobs then it’s a good thing. Angela x
Hahha yes. But I think we should all clean up after our pets!
I guess Parisians deem it rather inelegant to pick up their own dog’s mess but I bet they don’t like it when they step in it!
And there’s a LOT of stepping in it going on!
this made me laugh. I’m going to look out for one of these on our next trip to France!
I can’t say for sure if these poop mobiles still exist. Paris might have done away with them. But the definitely were in existence a couple of years ago!
It’s wrong when people don’t pick up their dogs poop. I do get looked at when I swoop down and pick a poop up that one of our dogs has dropped. I hav erecently started seeing warning signs for fines if you don’t pick up after your dog.
I’ve not seen ‘official’ dog poop picker uppers anywhere in Greece, but when I worked on Spetses, there was a horse poop shoveller, who went after the horse and carts and picked up the horse poop!
#AnimalTales
Yes, the signs w/the fines are everywhere but I’ve never seen them enforced. People in my neighborhood are pretty good about picking up after their dogs. So maybe in time it’ll no longer be a problem! I’m going to start doling out fines 😉
love it and waiting for it to come to Dubai, it absolutely stinks round the streets here in this heat
Oh man, I can only imagine. Poor you! Yuck!!
I had NEVER heard of one of these – wouldn’t it just be more simple if all owners scooped the poop that their pooches pooped out?!
Many thanks for adding the second poop related tale to #AnimalTales this week! (I also have a poo connection in the post linked to this comment!)
I don’t think the poop picker uppers are actually used anymore. But yes definitely more simple if we all picked up after our dogs. Easy enough. Takes 2 seconds.
As a person, working in that sphere, I think that it’s more likely for the dogs to start clearing after themselves rather than all pet owners to get use to do it. It’s sad, but true.
Hi Regina, if you don’t mind my asking, what type of work do you do? Feel free to email me if you don’t want to post it publicly. I feel like I could teach my dog to pick up her own poop. For a treat afterwards of course 😉 I don’t think all pet owners will ever do it but I think a little effort can make a big difference. Thanks for checking out the post!