More awareness needed

Dog excrement and plastic waste can kill grazing animals

Often it is ignorance, often ignorance or simply disrespect - but always an enormous risk for grazing animals! Dog excrement and garbage in the meadows are a danger to cows, horses and the like and can even kill them.

Johann Altmann has a farm with cows in Graz-Andritz - and sometimes can't believe what he finds in the hay or on his inspection rounds in the pasture: "Plastic, aluminum cans, toys, tennis balls, bottles and once even women's underwear," he says. And dog excrement? In huge quantities.

Karl Obenaus (spokesman for the Graz farmers), LK Vice-Chairwoman Maria Pein and Andritz farmer Johann Altmann, who is very concerned, act as admonishers and advocate greater awareness.(Bild: Sepp Pail)

It is shocking how carelessly throwing away garbage can have an impact - it can even end in the death of animals! Aluminum cans, for example, when chopped up by mowers, can cut their way from the animals' mouths into their stomachs like a sharp scalpel. State veterinarian Peter Eckhardt has already had such an agonizing case. And he also reports another case in which a screw swallowed by the animal found its way to the heart and pierced it.

Dangerous pathogen in dog excrement
And then there is Neospora Caninum - a pathogen as small as it is diabolical, which dogs excrete in their excrement and which grazing animals ingest through their food or water. With fatal consequences. Eckhardt: "In many cases, this causes the calf to die in the womb."

From sticks to dog toys, everything can be found in hay bales!(Bild: Sepp Pail)

Johann Altmann alone loses five to six (!) calves a year to this pathogen. Of his almost 70 cattle, 15 percent are infected with the virus. And that's only because the owners simply let their dogs do their business in the meadow and don't even clean up the droppings afterwards. And no, excrement from carnivores is not fertilizer, as some owners often wrongly argue, says Maria Pein, Deputy Head of the Chamber of Agriculture. 

The focus is on raising awareness(Bild: Sepp Pail)

And discussions with dog owners are usually of little use: at weekends, when many are out and about, neither Altmann nor Karl Obenaus, spokesperson for the Graz farmers, like to go out on their own meadows! "You can't cope nervously with the responses or sometimes insults that come back if you want to make people aware of what is being done here."

The landowners do not (initially) want to react with bans or actions for trespassing, because: "It's all about togetherness". But they are focusing on raising awareness. And Obenaus also demands: "We need more dog meadows that are sensibly laid out, especially on the outskirts of the city."