You may have seen one of these and wondered how they came to be. I’ve never made a real dog poo tree but maybe in my life I have made some metaphorical ones.

One day a man set out for a walk with his dog; the day was sunny and bright but before he left home he made sure he had his coat, his phone and plenty of dog poo bags. And the man and his dog set off for some healthy exercise together with the best of intentions.

Before long the dog stopped to have a poo. The man was annoyed. He was annoyed because he was not far into his walk on this fine, sunny bright day and the dog had pooed on the pavement right in front of someone’s house. Now, at heart, the man was a good man, so the thought that he could just leave it there only briefly passed his mind. And he definitely didn’t stop to pick it up just because he thought that someone might notice him leaving a mess on the pavement. No, he had set off with the best of intentions and he had planned well so he had his dog poo bags with him. He had hoped that the dog could have waited until he’d got to the fields and let him off the leash. But that wasn’t to be. He picked up the poo (did I mention that it was still warm? Perhaps I shouldn’t) and carried on for his walk.

What should he do with the dog’s poo, now safely in its black plastic bag? He knotted the top and looked for a bin. He knew there were no council bins nearby: this was a residential area after all. And it wasn’t bin day either: all the bins were next to their houses up their drives. He couldn’t walk all the way up to someone’s house to put the dog poo in. If only it was bin day.

He walked on, enjoying the sunny, bright day. But as he and the dog walked, the poo became more and more irksome to him. Why couldn’t his wife had walked the dog a bit further last night? Now he’d have to carry this for miles. As the dog ran across the fields ahead of him his mood was anything but bright and sunny. The whole universe seemed to revolve around the small plastic bag in his hand.

As they entered the woods the idea that had been forming in his head became clear. With a quick glance around him he lightly lobbed the bag into the bushes. He’d rather hoped it would disappear without trace but instead it caught on a branch a few feet from the path and hung there.

He didn’t look again but walked on. He tried not to think about the dog poo bag hanging there in the sun, the rain and the wind. But he chose some different walks with his dog which somehow seemed much nicer and which he always made with the best of intentions.