IF you’ve got a brown cocker spaniel and walk it in the Croesonen Parc area, watch out!

There’s a person putting up signs accusing an unidentified spaniel owner of failing to pick up their dog's waste.

Full disclosure. I actually own a spaniel, it’s brown, and a cocker and I often walk it over the Croesonen Parc field.

So imagine how surreal it was to go for an evening stroll and spot a sign that reads, “You with the brown cocker spaniel! Pick up, or you will be reported.”

Talk about making things personal!

At first, I thought I was imagining things or had just walked onto the set of The Truman Show, but the overall effect was one of complete shock at just how badly worded the sign was.

Instead of the more grammatically correct “pick it up,” it read “pick up.” Almost as if they were encouraging the dog owner who let their hound crap everywhere to keep their chin up and stay positive, or they would be reported. To who? The happy police?

Was I reading it wrong? Was I seeing it wrong? After all, the dog in the sign was no spaniel. It wasn’t even brown, it resembled less a canine and something you’d see painted on the inside of a pharaohs’ tomb. And why was it starting a fire with its butt?

Putting these aesthetic quibbles aside. The sign was well-made and I briefly toyed with the idea of setting it on fire and laughing manically like a pantomime villain.

Yet that would be irresponsible and churlish of me, and it had started to rain.

On further inspection, the sign was obviously built to withstand the elements and had been methodically drilled into the fence adjacent to the public path. It was a real labour of love or a campaign of hate.

Either way, some well-intentioned citizen had sat in front of a black mirror and forgotten where the road of good intentions led as they asked AI to design a poster that targets all spaniel owners in the vicinity with extreme prejudice.

It has to be said, we’re not a large tribe, but there are a few of us, and herein lies the rub: we’re all now going to be judged by strangers in the strength of a discriminating sign.

We can bag it and bin it until the end of time, but some types can’t wait to think the worst and hiss to one another in gossipy glee, “Oooh, matron, I wonder if that’s the guy with the brown spaniel the sign mentions!”

As a reporter, you’re used to being accused of all sorts of things and being called all sorts of names. It goes with the territory.

But along the way, you learn a thing or two about libel laws and the dangers of defamatory statements.

And this little sign hits the jackpot big time.

It’s big dollar defamation.

It’s a common misconception that you have to name someone to libel them; you don’t.

All journalism students will be familiar with the Banbury CID case of 1986. The now-defunct News Of The World alleged that an unidentified member of Banbury CID had committed rape. However, because Banbury CID was only a group of ten men, they all successfully sued the paper for libel on the strength that by not naming the accused man, they had all been implicated.

A legal precedent has been set, and this sign falls foul of it:

These laws are in place to stop mistaken identity and from putting targets on people’s backs.

Think on that next time you decide to go on a little fly-posting spree!