CSI: Carmel? New bark park may test dog poop for DNA

CARMEL – Cue the theme song to CSI: Crime Scene Investigation. Or maybe it should be Get Smart.

Carmel parks investigators may soon start taking doggie doo doo samples to send them off for DNA testing so they can fine owners who fail to clean up after their pets.

That's right, Carmel might go all CSI on your dog's, er, waste. If Carmel-Clay Parks hires a company called PooPrints, and you fail to clean up after your pooch in the city's new $1 million bark park, you could expect a notice — along with a bill — in the mail.

The concept isn't as far-fetched as it sounds.

Eric Mayer, PooPrints' director of business development, said the Knoxville, Tenn.,-based company has contracts with apartment complexes and condos in 45 states, Canada and the United Kingdom. A handful of apartment complexes use it in Indiana, including two in Indianapolis: 9 on Canal and Axis.

Carmel, though, would be the first city to use the service, founded in 2010.

Mark Westermeir, Carmel-Clay Parks director, said no decisions have been made about whether to hire the company or how to implement the program. The city could test the dogs of owners who have passes for a dog park.

Cotton swabs are used to gently and painlessly extract DNA from dogs' mouths and the data is entered into the company's worldwide registry.

And then, when someone finds a rogue pile of dog poop, employees can send the sample back to PooPrints for a simple DNA test.

The turnaround on results is about two weeks.

The success rate, PooPrints says, is phenomenal. Dog owners who have no problem leaving droppings on sidewalks and grass, it seems, don't like to be publicly shamed.

Leah Downie, property manager at Axis in Downtown Indianapolis, said PooPrints' service has kept the community cleaner than any she's worked at during eight years of property management.

Apartment employees, she said, have yet to test dog droppings. Everyone is behaving.

"The threat alone is keeping our facility pristine," Downie said. "We're a big, big fan of it."

Axis resident Linda Dulin, 51, at first was shocked at the idea of having her dog tested. But Oracle, a 12-year-old smooth fox terrier, didn't mind the test.

And Dulin has loved the results — a place to walk with no canine land mines.

"It makes me furious when people don't clean up after their dogs," Dulin said.

The service isn't terribly expensive. The DNA swab test, said Mayer of PooPrints, costs anywhere from $35 to $60 per dog. Some multifamily complexes pay for the tests, and others pass on some or all of the cost to pet owners.

The dog poo tests cost about $100 at the company's lab.

The technology has been an easy sell at apartment complexes, Mayer said, where property managers can require pet owners to have their dogs tested as a prerequisite of signing a lease.

It would be a little trickier for a city.

Some cities, such as Carmel, have considered testing only at dog parks. Others have considered testing every dog in the community. That would be the best way to ensure the culprits are caught, Mayer said, but it's been difficult to pull off.

Carmel's Westermeir got the idea when he saw a news report about an effort in Boulder, Colo., to implement the program. That effort failed because it just wasn't a practical way to police the city's 45,000 acres of open space, largely hiking trails, said parks' spokesman Patrick Von Keyserling.

But the more Westermeier looked into the service, the more serious he got about using it in Carmel. Containing it to the bark park, he thought, might work.

The city will open the 2-acre park on the east end of the Monon Community Center, just south of 111th Street, this summer. The park will include a fenced area, shelters, restrooms and water feature. A future 1.5-acre phase will include an agility course.

Piles of dog poop are already a problem at other Carmel parks, and, especially, along the Monon Greenway.

"In the winter, once the snow melts, we usually have a pretty major clean up across the trail," Westermeier said.

The bark park will be the first of several in Carmel. So, Westermeier began to think, why not check out PooPrints?

He ran it by Mayor Jim Brainard. At first, Brainard thought it was a joke. But after learning more about it, the mayor told The Star, it actually sounded kind of cool.

"I thought, 'you're kidding me Mark,'" Brainard said. "But when you look around the country, one of the problems (at dog parks) is poop. Owners don't clean it up."

Westermeier said Carmel-Clay parks officials will form a committee this spring to discuss the rules and fee structure for the bark park, including the possible use of DNA testing.

He said parks officials are very interested. Dog waste can contribute to the spread of disease. And it costs money to pay staff to clean up the dog droppings.

Plus, it's, well, kind of gross. Westermeir knows it'll be a tough sell for the community, and a strange one, too.

It would take some getting used to, locally. Indianapolis doesn't use DNA testing at its four bark parks.

Spokeswoman Lesley Gordon told The Star dog owners use the bags and receptacles provided by the city. Most dog owners, she said, are responsible.

"It's not an overarching problem," she said.

But Westermeier might just try.

"The people I've told," Westermeier said, "sort of laugh, and then they look at me and say, 'oh you're sort of serious about it.' I laugh and say, 'yea I'm sort of serious about it.'"

Call Star reporter Chris Sikich at (317) 444-6036. Follow him @ChrisSikich.