Dog walkers here carry water bottles and pour water where their dog peed — what is that about?
The standard dog-walking kit includes poop bags AND a water bottle: after the dog urinates on a pole or wall, the owner rinses the spot. Waste goes home with them (there are no public bins), some owners use pee sheets mid-walk, and manner posters about dog etiquette hang in parks and residential streets.
The water dilutes urine so it doesn't smell or stain — because that pole, that wall, that planter belongs to someone, and leaving your dog's trace on it is an imposition. The whole kit is meiwaku-avoidance made visible: your pet's business must not become anyone else's problem.
Why — five layers
The governing rule is that your household's affairs — including your dog's — must not burden neighbors: not with smell, not with stains, not even with the sight of waste.
In dense housing, walls and poles stand centimeters from front doors, neighbors notice and remember, and complaints travel through the community. Reputation enforcement does what no ordinance could.
Local ordinances and apartment pet rules codify cleanup duties, and the absence of public trash bins means waste physically must come home with you — the norm and the infrastructure reinforce each other.
International view
Poop-scooping is standard in cities worldwide now. The water bottle for urine is the extra step that surprises visitors — an above-and-beyond norm that spread socially, not by law, in most places.
But not always
Not universal: plenty of walkers skip the bottle, rural areas are looser, and the norm is strongest in dense residential neighborhoods where traces actually bother someone.
What to do
If you walk a dog here: bags plus a water bottle is the kit, and waste goes home (some wards hand out etiquette kits). Check parks and cafes for posted pet rules — many spaces are no-pets or leash-length specific.
Sources
- municipal pet-manner ordinances and campaigns
- general testimony