Ripon four-year-old's mission to end dog fouling along popular footpath

Isla Freeman has drawn up posters and rallied her troops - mum Sophie with partner Liam, and her younger sister, to halt the offending dog walkers in their tracks and reclaim her footpath.

Isla has enjoyed walking along the footpath that runs beside the river Skell from Bondgate to Barefoot Street many times with her mum and sister, but its condition has deteriorated so much that she has decided enough is enough, and that something has to be done.

The posters designed by Isla, which read, 'there's no such thing as the dog poo fairy', and, 'it makes a mess of my shoes and my baby sister's pushchair', have been put up all along the stretch this week.

Isla's mum Sophie said: "My message to dog walkers would just be, pick the poo up. Some people just don't think about it, and I don't understand why it doesn't cross their minds.

"Maybe if they had a four-year-old trampling through it and got it all over their pushchair they might think about it then. There are plenty of bins around the footpath so it's not like they have to walk for miles to get rid of it.

"It's definitely got worse over time, we've had to go the opposite way rather than go along that path because it's got that bad. It's been all over the path and sometimes we haven't physically been able to go along it without getting it everywhere.

"I've had to keep getting Isla to dodge it, and she said she wanted to make some posters. Hopefully by putting her name on them, showing that a four-year-old child has noticed it as a problem and wants to do something about it, other people will start doing something about it too."