Of Hounds and Horses...or Von Hunden und Pferden

This could possibly be my shortest post ever, but I must get this off my mind.  There are many things I have had to adjust to here, and some are things I think are actually good (stores closed on Sundays being an example).  However, I will not EVER be able to accommodate in my mind one thing about their dogs and horses here.  Okay - so they LOVE their dogs and horses here.  I recognized this when we moved here and I had to step aside on the sidewalk for the horses.  Then I read In the Garden of Beasts by Erik Larsen, and he mentioned it as significant in 1930's Germany.  But it goes back further than that.  There is even a Wikipedia entry on all the dog breeds that have originated in Germany.  Really, they LOVE them.  Here's the thing:  they love them so much, they allow them to, ummm, how to say this delicately, basically poo all over the sidewalks and then do not clean it up.  Now, some times, they do clean up the horse stuff, but they never clean up after their dogs.  It is considered natural (which, of course, it is) and part of the environment.  Which makes every step you take on a sidewalk an often perilous journey.  Now consider following a 6 year old who is often so caught up in is own imagination, he has no notion of where his feet are moving.  


Now I know why they remove their shoes upon entering a house.  Super important when you consider where those shoes have likely stepped.  


I have accepted this as something I cannot change, but it does NOT mean I will ever like this.  like, EVER.  


This post will be without pictures for self-explanatory reasons.  ;-)