A world-famous Highland golf club is making sure it won’t be in the doghouse by helping to tee off a new campaign.
The Royal Dornoch Golf Club wants to make sure dog-owners pick up after their pets.
Local residents, concerned at the withdrawal of free poo bags last year, have set up ‘Dornoch Dogs’ to ensure the popular tourism destination is kept as free as possible from fouling.
While the golf course is not one of the worst areas affected, it has joined the campaign along with the local Beach Group and Community Council.
Since last summer the golf club has also been paying for and supplying free bags to a number of local dispensers to help owners clean up, and is encouraging other businesses in the town to support the campaign.
Neil Hampton, Royal Dornoch’s general manager, said: “Dog fouling is an issue which affects the whole community in such a tourism-dependent area. It’s unsightly and can be a health issue, so we are keen to do whatever we can to help this campaign to tackle the problem and ensure people living here or visiting help to keep the town clean.”
Dornoch Dogs’ chair Councillor Deirdre Mackay, added: “We are lucky to live in a beautiful environment and we want to do all we can to keep it this way. So the message is ‘bag it and bin it’. It is an offence for the person in charge of a dog to leave its mess without removing it. Both the police and authorised local council staff can now issue a fixed penalty notice of £80.”
Yvonne Ross, who chairs Dornoch Area Community Council, said: “We welcome and support this initiative which we think has some very innovative ideas. Anything we can do to keep the town clean has to be welcomed.”
Dornoch Dogs said an estimated 300 dogs are ‘resident’ in the town, with some 3,500 visiting with their owners each year. The group has already successfully trialled the use of temporary biodegradable chalk-based spray to ‘poo spot’ in major fouling areas.
Local resident, Ian Madeley, who is behind the Dornoch campaign, said: “The more we can raise awareness the more success we will have in ridding the town of this problem. We need to encourage dog owners who are not picking up to do so. It is really upsetting and annoying to the vast majority of owners who do pick up.”.
