People who fail to pick up their pooch’s poo are more annoying than those who cheat on their partners, fiddle their taxes or talk about your sweetheart’s exes. According to the survey of Danish attitudes by Urban/Gallup, not doing your dog doo duties is the biggest social no-no in the country.
A massive 91 percent of the probe’s 1,207 respondents said they were angered by people who refused to clean up after their pets. In comparison, only around half of the participants said they felt as negatively about hearing accounts of their new lover’s former sex life or listening to tales of infidelity in their circle of friends. Ignoring an animal’s mess was even found to be more frowned upon than tax fraud.
Johannes Andersen, who works as a social scientist at Aalborg University in northern Denmark, said the results of the survey indicate a clear split in the tolerance threshold of Danes.
“We’re normally quite understanding when it comes to how other people lead their lives,” he said in a report by the Copenhagen Post. “But as soon as anyone interferes with our personal choices, we react a lot more strongly,” he added.
Mr Andersen went on to say that although moonlighting is much more damaging to the economy than dog mess, it is an abstract concept that Danes do not have to face in day-to-day life.