When I was a kid, I was supposed to scour our back garden for canine crap and dump it into the chemical toilet we had planted in the corner of the yard. But that rarely happened. I didn't see a problem with clearing the lawn once a week, but my mum would complain about stepping in shit when hanging clothes on the line and bitch about having to clean it up herself -- "You said you'd look after the dog, but I end up doing it all!"

If Curt Gilling had lived in my small English town, I might have been able to continue my idle bastard ways *and* spare my mother the indignity of scooping the poop.

Although with perhaps a less sophisticated approach than Ellen of No More Poop [1], Gilling, a self-styled "entremanure," makes [2]his living clearing up dogshit with his company Safe Step [3]. Simple as that.

Sounds good, right?

What's even better is that I had the privilege of seeing him in action last Saturday after my wife and I decided to drop in on my father-in-law. He wasn't there, so we let ourselves in and watched a bit of TV while we waited for his return. Imagine this PoopReporter's delight when, flicking channels, the story of the Ordure Orderly from Oklahoma [4] came on the screen!

Gilling has been in the business (ho ho!) for nearly five years, and has done himself alright, thank you very much. He owns two motorbikes and has a fancy work truck. He's also not short of a ready quip about his line of work. "People ask me how business is, I says it's pickin' up."

For a craftsman of Gilling's stature, cleaning up people's gardens isn't the only part of the operation. He takes great pride in his work, as evidenced by the special disinfectant he uses to treat his utensils (a small lawn rake and a box-dustpan on a stick!) after each job. He is also a member of the Association of Professional Animal Waste Specialists: aPaws [5].

Damn! There's an organization for everything, these days, isn't there? They even have a Pooper Scoopers' Convention. Take a look at the schedule [6] -- it could be from something as lofty as a top doctors' convention. There's even a meet and greet! I can imagine Curt propping up the bar and regaling the chicks with tales of his two hogs whilst a room full of his peers shoot the shit.