Is dog waste a natural fertilizer?
Dog waste is not a fertilizer. Dogs, unlike cows, are meat-eaters and this means their intestinal tracts are more like our own, colonized with similar bacteria. One big difference is that their gut is home to about twice as many fecal coliform bacteria such as E. coli, as ours. To safely use dog waste as a fertilizer, the composted waste has to reach and sustain very high temperatures to kill the pathogens. This cannot be done through usual composting methods. Even if it is properly done, some canine pathogens have such hard outer shells that they can survive extremes of heat and cold and live for years in soil.
