Police in Sicily accused a dog owner of training his pooch to illegally dump trash at a fly-tipping hotspot in Catania— thereby avoiding being filmed doing so himself. But after the second trip, officers followed the pup home and identified the owner, issuing a fine.
"Ingenuity can never be an alibi for incivility," wrote Catanian officials on the city's Facebook page, calling on locals to show respect for the environment. Machine translated to English:
The Environmental Unit of the Municipal Police in Catania has released two videos recorded by surveillance cameras on Via Pulacara, in the San Giorgio neighborhood, showing a dog depositing a bag of trash on the street. A scene that leaves little room for doubt: the animal appears to have been trained to spare its owner from being caught on camera while illegally dumping garbage.
A behavior as "clever" as it is doubly wrong—because not only does it dirty the city, it also tries to dodge the rules by exploiting an unwitting four-legged friend.
Respect for urban decorum and the environment is everyone's responsibility.
Embedded below is the video of the pup, trotting merrily along the road toward the dumping spot.
