Women fight with dog faeces

Faeces were flying on Friday on Madison's East Side as two neighbours smeared each other's cars with dog doo, then squared off with shovels in a dispute over whose pooch did what where, police said. Nina A. Bell, 56, and Arnessa V. Battles, 38, were both cited for disorderly conduct after the incident that occurred at about 1 p.m. in the 700 block of Pinecrest Drive.

According to police, the dispute began when Bell discovered a large pile of poop on the walkway to her apartment. She knew it was too big to be from her dog, so she shovelled it up and dumped it on Battles' stoop, figuring it had come from her neighbour's dog. "There is some dispute over how exactly the situation escalated from this point, but what is clear is that when the officer arrived the women had shovelled up lots of ," police spokesman Joel DeSpain said.



According to a police report, Battles said Bell threatened to cut her with a razor if she threw faeces on Bell's new green Saturn. But when an officer arrived, both Bell's Saturn and Battles' beige Oldsmobile "had large amounts of dog faeces piled and smeared across their windshields." "During the flinging of the faeces some ended up on Bell's clothes, and before the battle was over both women had squared off with the shovels, although neither delivered an actual blow to the other," DeSpain said. "The officer observed that the entire backyard was covered in a winter's worth of dog defecation made much more obvious with the melting snow."

There are three dogs in the apartment building with a common backyard — a pit bull, a border collie, and a Rottweiler, DeSpain said, noting, "The officer said it was impossible to determine which went where." The officer negotiated an agreement for both women to have their respective canines do their duty on their owner's side of the backyard, DeSpain said.