There was a time when I walked both dogs at the same time. To accomplish this, I brought a ton of dog paraphernalia along. Camera, cell phone, treat bag, poop bags, pepper blaster. When I drove up to the park, I added in car keys. To accommodate all these items, I needed a small backpack, decent size fanny pack or pants with lots of deep pockets.

The basic dog walking essentials…cell phone, car keys (to drive to park) pepper blaster and treat bag. Only thing missing? Poop bags!

Now that I walk the dogs individually, I’ve pared down the items I carry with me. In the summer it’s simple, my pepper blaster in my reflective vest pocket, my cell phone in my pants/shorts pocket, a treat pouch and a couple of poop bags in my back pocket.

In the darker, winter months, I carry a very large, stand-on-its own flashlight. I usually throw three poop bags in my back pocket and keep one or two in the front pocket of my treat pouch, just in case. I mean, there have actually been days when for whatever reason, I’ve walked out without a poop bag in my back pocket.

I’ve found it’s always helpful to have an extra poop bag or two, because you just never know when you may need a spare. I mean like, sometimes, you have those messy, soft poops. I don’t know about you, but sometimes I struggle to pick those bitches up. More than once I’ve found myself with some er…um..residue on my hands. When that happens, I stick one poop bag inside the other, because odds are, if I have poop on my hands, I have poop on the bag, if I have poop on the bag, I can get it on the leash, or the flashlight….well you get the point.

Having extra poop bags sure comes in handy. Besides using it for double baggers, here are some other ways I’ve used extra poop bags in the past.

• • Wet gloves. You know those rainy, sleeting days in winter? Sometimes your gloves get wet. You have two choices, you can wear them. Wet. OR since your hands are going to be cold and wet anyway, take them off and carry them home.
  • Broken poop bags. It doesn’t happen all that often, but I have pulled out a poop bag, opened it up, scooped that poop, only to have a turd bounce off one of my toes.
  • Acorns. Weird right? Sometimes I have little girls come along on a walk. Both my granddaughter and my great niece love to collect acorns, but they rarely bring anything to collect them in. Enter the poop bag.
  • Food, bones or glass. Honestly, I’ve encountered all of these items on walks in my neighborhood. I won’t leave glass just sitting around, and if there is food and a certain dog finds it before me, even if I can get her to leave it, she remembers where it was and keeps going back again and again.
    

    You know I can leave it, but we will revisit this tomorrow.

• Birch scent. Once when Delilah and I were taking a nosework class, our instructor was sending us all home with a small birch scent. Trouble was, she had nothing to store it in. Enter….the spare poop bag.
• Mischief. This may come as a surprise to some of you, but once in a while I feel a little rebellious, mostly on garbage days when the everyone has their trash to the curb. On those days when I don’t feel like hauling that little bag around, I oh-so-casually slip that little baggie into a neighbor’s bin. Preferably in one of the DADO neighbor’s bin.
• Pony tails. WTF? I know, but it was a super-hot day and I forgot to pull my hair back before leaving on our walk. As I plodded along cursing myself, the heat, the humidity, I wondered, just how I could get that hair off my hot, sticky neck. Thankfully I don’t have really thick hair, or I don’t think I could have pulled this one off.

Creative or crude? You decide.

Now, I haven’t actually used a poop bag for the following, but I can see these might be times a spare bag could come in handy.

• Vomit. I got this idea from one of my oldest friends (and former boss.) Once, back in the day when we were oh so young, we were on our way to cash our paychecks. It was a warm day, and coupled with the rocking of the car and the heavy drinking of the night before, my friend felt very nauseous. While waiting in line at the drive-thru, she found a plastic bag, and very quietly purged what ailed her. Granted it wasn’t a poop bag, but a poop bag would totally work.
• Tapeworms. EWWWW. A while back Sampson had tapeworm. I found myself needing to isolate the specimen and while I brought along a clear plastic baggie, if I didn’t have one, the spare poop bag would have done the job.
• Temporary water bowl. Granted my poop bags are scented, but in a pinch you could line a ball cap with a poop bag, or make a small ring with rocks to hold the bag and you could definitely get your dog some water.

Well, there you have it. Ten creative ways to use poop bags. Have you ever used a poop bag for something other than what it was intended for?