human poop in parks

The case I told it Marisa García, apothecary, has been on Instagram for some time now. One day he was walking through a park in Majadahonda when he lost sight of his dog. The scare did not last long. The dog reappeared after a few minutes, but it did so after having feasted on human feces. Up to this point the scene may be eschatological, but it is not of much interest either. If you have a dog you will know that it’s not strange that are interested in poop. The problem is that those specific feces contained traces of drugs, which is why the animal ended up in the vet.

The problem is that it is not an isolated case.

More than an eschatological anecdote. The video of García is from September 2024 but the poisoning of dogs that end up ‘high’ (and admitted to a veterinary clinic) after feasting on human poop is far from being a curiosity or problem of the past. Quite the opposite. It continues to happen (at least in the Community of Madrid) and with astonishing frequency.

This has been revealed The Country in an article in which he cites several veterinary cases that corroborate that they are no longer surprised to encounter dogs that, due to their owners’ carelessness, have ingested poop… with some type of drug. A member of the Reina Cristina emergency center assures that they have attended to up to four emergencies in a week. Even in the film ‘Sirât’Oliver Laxe’s Oscar-nominated film, is winks to these types of cases.

“I had already been warned”. García’s experience is illustrative. In September 2024 counted how he lost sight of his dog while walking through a park in Majadahonda (Madrid). When the animal appeared, it did so with surprise: “It had eaten someone’s feces.” The problem is that those human poops were ‘seasoned’ with something else. Whoever had left them there had consumed drugs, substances that left traces in their stools.

“Dogs eat it and get intoxicated from marijuana, cocaine… In this case it also had traces of tricyclic antidepressantsfrom opiates… Maybe from someone who was taking some type of medication,” remember the apothecary. “Apart from vomiting and becoming very sad and ill, the dog’s back legs began to fail and he couldn’t walk. That alerted us and we took him to the vet.”

García recognized that cases like the one she had experienced were relatively frequent because, whether due to lack of public bathrooms, urgency or simple habit, there are people who choose to relieve themselves in the parks… leaving their excrement and everything they contain, including traces of drugs or legal medications. “I had already been warned. This can happen to anyone. There are more and more dogs that become intoxicated by the drugs that humans consume,” Remember Garcia.

“A plague”. How frequent is it? One of the veterinarians interviewed by The Country speaks directly of “plague.” The problem is by no means new, but cases such as that of García or that of Paula Valdeón, another Madrid native who had to take her dog (Balkis) to a clinic after she ate human feces during a night walk through Madrid Río, suggest that it has worsened. The reason? One possible explanation is the change in drug use.

A european report of 2025 on the subject concludes that 13.3% of Spaniards between 15 and 64 years old have tried cocaine at least once in their lives. This is the highest figure in the EU, considerably above nations such as France and Denmark (9.4%) or the Netherlands (8%). Not all are negative indicators (cannabis use has collapsed among adolescents), but Health data show that the prevalence of the consumption of hypnosedatives, ecstasy, cocaine or hallucinogens is significantly higher today than in the 90s.

Are there more factors? Yes. Several. The first explains why the report of The Country or García’s video point to the same region: Madrid. Beyond the greater or lesser consumption of drugs, the capital deals with a handicap: the high cost of nightlife, which forces groups to look for alternatives, such as meeting in public areas or organizing bottles. If to that is added the the small number of public toiletsthe story tells itself: feces within reach of the dogs, with everything they have ‘on board’, both medications and illegal drugs.

Beyond Madrid. The problem of pet poisoning is not exclusive to the parks and gardens of Madrid. A year ago the Radio and Television of the Principality of Asturias warned that several dogs from Oviedo had gotten sick after eating human poop with traces of drugs. For the neighbors, the origin of the problem was clear: the drinking parties held in a park in the area.

There are also animals that become intoxicated without setting foot on the street. In 2024 JAMA Network Open public a study by Orrin Ware and Renée Schmid that shows that episodes of this type are not strange within homes themselves. For their study, the researchers analyzed hundreds of calls made between 2019 and 2023 to the organization Pet Poison Helpline in which pet owners reported that their animals had become poisoned.

The sample must be handled with some caution because it coincided with the pandemic, a period during which many people were forced to confine themselves and carry out their daily lives inside their homes, but their conclusions are interesting: they reveal a worrying (and growing) exposure of pets to drugs.

Images | Courtney Mihaka (Unsplash) and Colin Davis (Unsplash)

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