It’s poop-ulation control.
A just-opened Long Island rental building has ordered up DNA-sampling kits for dogs as a way to catch scofflaw owners who don’t clean up after their pets.
It would be the first genetics-based poop patrol in New York.
The pilot program at the Avalon Bay Community complex in Rockville Centre has already ordered four “PooPrint” kits that would require a saliva swab taken from each dog’s mouth. The samples would then be sent to a Tennessee-based lab for analysis and entered into the DNA World Pet Registry.
If a groundskeeper then finds an offending mound in a common area, he would pluck a marble-sized sample from it and store it in a plastic tube. The sample is mailed to the DNA detectives at the Bio Pet Vet lab in Knoxville, who then match it to the doggie who dunnit.
The errant owner could be fined from $50 to $1,000, but that would be up to building management.
That’s on top of the $90 charge the tenant pays to sign up for the registry in the first place.
“I think it’s a little extreme,” said a new Avalon renter about the complex’s pet police. But she and her daughter have no pets, and in any case, she said, “I would curb my dog.”
Avalon management says the program is not under way yet, but it’s a good idea.
Currently, Avalon requires a $650 one-time pet fee and a monthly $50 charge for either a cat or a dog.
Pet lab company executive Eric Mayer says the PooPrint program — whose motto is “Match the Mess Through DNA” — expects to have 300 franchises opened by the end of the year.
“We’ve been getting a ton of interest from all over,” he said.
“It’s like CSI. We build a database for the community.”
He added that PooPrint only matches the individual dog’s saliva to the poop. It does not identify the breed, mix or gender of the dog.
According to the company, an average dog dumps 276 pounds of waste a year. About 40 percent remains unscooped
In Jupiter, Fla., the village of Abacoa, a 458-condo complex, used PooPrint to curtail the pets that poop in off-limits areas. Offending owners can be fined $1,000 and even have a lien placed on
their condo.