We know we know. Another post about piles? - that's two out of the last four! Dr. Freud would have a thing or two to say about that buster! True, but if you're like us and your state school education only afforded you the opinion that the most interesting and troubling elements of Freud's work were contained within his beard then we should be able to move on.That said, we are committed to bringing you unbiased and woefully uncompensated product reviews from time to time and this one was staring us right in our back up cameras and might as well be dealt with presently. The DOGIPOT Pet Station, seen here in our local evening route is a common sight in parks, developments and certain well-heeled urban environs and is self explanatory for even the most tragic of litter trained, housebreaking wee-wee pad, milk-feds out there.
Taking this staple item for granted we plugged the obviously proprietary name into a certain silly monikered search engine that has recently become a major international political player that rhymes with KUGEL if you mispronounce it slightly [Sorry, we have made our decision for Christ and there is only room for one search tool in this no-kill shelter and it doesn’t rhyme with bing.]. To our surprise DOGIPOT has its own website, and is not, as we supposed, one of a crapzillion products made by some strip mining, oil spilling, dogless, faceless monolith. It’s a slightly kitchy, earth friendly, dog centric minorlith repleat with everybody’s all-American spokesdog golden retriever (Spoiler alert! I hear he dies at the end.). Anyway, it turns out that DOGIPOT, the d/b/a of DP Pet Products makes some of our favorite municipal grade dog toilets, namely those made of metal. The topic of conversation here however is the one made of plastic – poly as it appears on their site. We have no way of knowing which is the more expensive but if we had to guess we would say metal. The plastic one as pictured above does a serviceable job in the bag dispensing department and holds two amply supplied rolls. On several occasions it has been noted that the bag rolls if left unopened as is often the case at our local become difficult/childproof/impossible/torrent of f-bombs to open one handed while a human holds a leash in the other. We can chalk this up not to design flaw but rather to the conscientiousness of the civil servant who replenishes the kiosk. Next we move to durability of the plastic parts which among products in order of importance, we put the neighborhood can that holds dog crap just slightly behind the roof over your children’s head and nuclear reactors in terms of items that we hope are sturdy. This is where the wheels start to come off. The poly version
of this product just does not seem to hold up to repeated use in a moderately dog heavy block. Specifically as seen here, the lid is easily dislodged from the bucket and when it is attached is a bit hard to open one handed while holding the offending parcel in the same hand. Plus, we always have the sense that some errant - uh, material from the previous user has somehow escaped the admirably biodegradable bag and is poised surreptitiously under the lid waiting for the bare hand of unsuspecting humanity. Frankly, it makes us want to take a shower like Meryl Streep in Silkwood after each use - speaking of nuclear reactors. Again, we can’t say for sure if the lid on our test pot was in fact broken through normal use – it may not have been broken at all but it certainly became dislodged and has not been seen in some time. Assuming that this is not the fault of design but again caused by human mishap or neglect let’s just consider the wide-mouth opening on that can – do you think that magnifies and broadcasts aroma or does its part to contain them – correct. With that lid off this thing has about a 5 meter kill radius in summer, slightly less in winter. We point to the sleek metal version again with its cylindrical design as our desert island pick for keeping the horse in the barn. Signage is unobtrusive but clear, the whole contraption itself not offensive looking in all but the toniest of locales and is as green as such a device can be by way of those biodegradable bags unless the whole thing was made out of bamboo and recycled fur seals. Durability of the structural skeleton (metal) is good with no sinking, bending or other threatening movement of the main post or bolts noticed in nearly two years. So what are we left with? Perhaps more a comment about choosing the right tool for the job than the merit of this product itself. Plastic might be fine for lightly traveled dog-ways but is no match for an average block of multiple dwelling neighborhood dogs on a steady diet of wet food and human yardless-guilt. For this and all public gathering spots we recommend the metal version for all around durability and containment. It is worth noting that we have trialed this version at several local parks with great success. Takeaways: if your neighborhood dues or condo association fees or parks and rec taxes can withstand it, vote metal, if not, go plastic but be sure the neighborhood watch keeps gentle treatment of this item on par with purse nabbings. Lastly, we submit this critique as fans of the dog paraphernalia industry and we ourselves are after all, end users, not designers. But if we were we might suggest a device such as:
If you don’t know what that is we can’t help you. If you do, you need a girlfriend.
- P&S
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