BEIRUT, Lebanon — On a quiet, expensive Beirut street, the dog walkers began to appear. It was precisely that moment in a Mediterranean evening when the light turns golden and the bougainvillea blossoms seem to glow from within. The lengthening shadows magnified a series of lumps on the sidewalk, like cairns marking a mountain trail.

On closer inspection, they were hills of poop.

Jad Nawfal, 34, paused with his German shepherd, Boiko. As the dog sniffed a pile, the human regarded a newish sign that said: “Please! Clean up after your dog.”

“To Lebanese people,” he said, wrinkling his nose, “it’s kind of embarrassing to pick up poop.”

How about picking their way past dog feces on the streets?

If it is not on their personal property, he said, “They just don’t care.”

That is exactly the problem, said Carole Babikian, part of a small band of Beirutis trying to drag their city into the 20th-century world of poop-scooping.