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Dog eats poop. Pet owner gags. Dog eats poop again. Pet owner runs screaming from the room. Yes, it's disgusting. Yes, it's potentially unhealthy. And, yes, it's fairly common in the animal world. A pup will eat his own poop for a number of reasons:

A 49-year-old woman found herself in a pile of trouble after investigators linked her to apparent human poop in an elevator at the St. Lucie County Courthouse in downtown Fort Pierce. The case against Patricia Ann Jamison, of Lake Worth, got rolling March 7 after court security staff learned of what looked to be "human fecal matter in the corner of the left public elevator by the buttons," according to recently released St. Lucie County Sheriff's records.

Who has been defecating on children's slides in Ypsilanti’s Prospect Park for the past five to six months? Ypsilanti police and city officials are hunting for the person officials have described as the “mystery pooper” as warmer weather approaches. Officials have discovered feces on the slides so frequently that police installed a hidden camera to try to capture an image of the act. Council Member Pete Murdock, who is also the head of the Friends of Prospect Park, described the act as “weird and deliberate.” He said he first received a call about the issue more than five months ago...

WILMINGTON, N.C. — A Wilmington apartment complex will soon be running DNA tests on dog poop to identify owners who don't clean up after their pooches do their business. The StarNews of Wilmington reports The Reserve at Forest Hills will ask the complex's 100 dog owners to have their pets swabbed for a DNA sample. Then, if poop found in the complex matches a pet, the owner will be fined and also will have to pay for the DNA testing which can cost up to $50.

Two cases in Eugene Municipal Court this week revolved around protest, poop and constitutional free speech rights. Judge Karen Stenard heard testimony in a motion-to-dismiss hearing July 15 about two protests in the Wayne Morse Free Speech Plaza that involved the arrests of 21 people in one protest and activist Alley Valkyrie in another. Both were related to the group SLEEPS, which set up tents in the plaza to call attention to the plight of the homeless. The cases were heard on the same day as they subpoenaed the same witnesses. Attorney Lauren Regan in her motion to dismiss the...

New signs target 'code brown' incidents at the pool When the lifeguard at the Finley Aquatic Center ordered everyone out of the pool Monday afternoon, Hanna Turbeville, along with many other parents, naturally assumed it was a “code brown” incident — the term used by parents and lifeguards alike for poop in the pool. (excerpt)

There's poop in public pools, according to a new report. Researchers at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) found genetic material from E. coli bacteria in 58 percent of public pools they tested during the summer of 2012. This shows that "swimmers frequently introduced fecal material into pools," which could spread germs to other people, the researchers wrote in their report. E. coli bacteria are normally found in the human gut and feces. They also found genetic material from bacteria called Pseudomonas aeruginosa, whichcan cause skin rashes and ear infections, in 59 percent of pools. The fecal material...

(Newser) – There's no way this one could have ended well: An East Texas school's search for the mystery pooper who had five times left feces in the gymnasium led the principal to ask the school nurse to inspect the fourth-graders' underwear. "My kid came home and he said ... his butt had been inspected," complained one parent of a West Sabine Elementary student. That class had been the ones using the gym when the feces appeared, and didn't respond when the principal continually asked who did the deed. She defended the move to KAIT8 News. She says the nurse...

"Poop transplants" are an effective way to treat people with one type of intestinal bacteria infection, a new study shows. Researchers transplanted fecal matter from healthy people into the colons of people infected with the notoriously hard-to-treat Clostridium difficile bacteria, which causes severe, watery diarrhea. The researchers found that 46 out of 49 patients got better within a week of the treatment.

A Texas restaurant owner is up in arms after Corpus Christi city officials informed him he can no longer wash the bird poop off the sidewalk in front of his business — not unless he wants a $2,000 fine, KRIS-TV reported. John Webb, general manager of Crawdaddy’s in downtown Corpus Christi, told the station he’s been hosing the sidewalk down for 18 years. That is, until city officials told him earlier this month he was breaking the law. The reason? A city storm water ordinance that bars anyone from washing pollutants, like bird poop, into the storm drain system that...

Nancy Pelosi referred to the Republicans as the E.coli club. But what she said is much, much worse.

Neighbors in the active Tuscany block are reeling over an alleged murder committed there. The victim, Franklin Manuel Santana, had just moved from the Miami area a month ago with his wife Raquel and baby daughter. Santana did not know Tyrirk Harris, but he would meet Harris for the first and last time in a quarrel over dog poop.

Members of the Occupy Wall Street movement urinated on a cross, desecrated a church and threw Bibles at police officers in separate incidents over the weekend. Protesters in San Francisco occupied an abandoned hotel and began attacking police – hurling bricks and Bibles at officers. “Once they gained access [to the hotel], some of them made it to the top of the roof and they began to throw Bibles down at the officers,” San Francisco Police Dept. spokesman Carlos Manfredi told ABC News. Several officers were injured in the attack. In New York City, Occupy protesters allegedly urinated on a...

Tossing feces with pinpoint accuracy may not immediately strike you as sophisticated behavior, but researchers studying the brain activity of captive chimpanzees have found that the smartest apes also happen to pitch the most accurate poop, according to Physorg.com. Playing dodgeball with poop-wielding chimpanzees may sound like an odd career choice, but Bill Hopkins of Emory University, who spent the last several years observing the throwing accuracy and brain scans of chimpanzees, had a hunch that this behavior had a deeper significance.Particularly curious to Hopkins was the fact that chimpanzees are the only species besides humans known to regularly throw...

(PhysOrg.com) -- A lot of people who have gone to the zoo have become the targets of feces thrown by apes or monkeys, and left no doubt wondering about the so-called intellectual capacity of a beast that would resort to such foul play. Now however, researchers studying such behavior have come to the conclusion that throwing feces, or any object really, is actually a sign of high ordered behavior.

A local reporter in Eureka, California has the unenviable task of trying to figure out who pooped on a local bank. Via YouTube: "News Channel 3 Eureka CA reporter asking the Occupy protesters if they peed or pooped on the bank. All they can say is that the bank pees and poops on us all every day. She then walks through the camp and then gets assaulted by a camping occupy protester who doesn't want to occupy her time." Check out our new original video from Occupy Wall Street: #OWS Quiz, Part II: How Much Do the Protesters Know About...What...

“This has been a nightmare,” said Brian Summers, who lives near Zuccotti Park. Summers said those trying to force corporations to become better corporate citizens should learn to be better citizens themselves. “It makes us feel horrible. We work down here, we live down here,” said Summers. Drums are played each and every day. The noise registers as 117 on a decibel meter. According to the federal government, regular exposure to 110 decibels can lead to permanent hearing loss. From blocks away, it might not be physically harmful, but neighbors say it's damaging lives. “We support the message, and a...

Conspicuously living among the politically active in the makeshift village in Zuccotti Park are opportunistic junkies and homeless people - making the most of the free food on offer. Also present and infuriating the hard core of activists are a number of teens looking to turn the gathering into an urban rave. Among the banners and flags are now discarded packets of condoms, cigarettes and bottles of spirits, while naked youngsters happily get together with just sleeping bags covering their modesty. A box of free condoms is kept in the main area where protesters are camping. In one shocking picture,...

While such parks normally are bustling with people - and have facilities to serve them - the relative seclusion appears to have emboldened some to do their business along trails and other areas where no Minnesotan would normally dare to squat. "People are taking it upon themselves to go out in the woods and relieve themselves, and without the presence of employees and others, they're not picking up after themselves," Konrad said. "People are also having a tendency not to pick up after their pets."

I recently did the whole mixed-breed dog DNA testing shebang on Alice, using three of the most popular tests available: Wisdom Panel, BioPet and Canine Heritage. And while her results were, um...mixed, it was definitely a fun and interesting process. (More on this experience in a post next week.) Like me, most people test their mixed-breed dogs simply out of curiosity. Many mutts come from shelters and rescue groups where, although workers and volunteers do their best, a lot of background information isn't often available at the time of adoption. DNA tests can often shed light on our dog's ancestors,...