Today’s Times article on dog feces and the scooping thereof got me thinking about horse poop. The city of Seattle requires that horses in the carriage business wear “equine diapers” while on public property. But Seattle Police horses roll naked, as anyone who accidentally steps in a pile on First Ave. or any street that recently held a large public event can tell you. (Horses are often used to enable police to see what’s going on in large crowds.)Police horses are “given an exemption because they’re essentially an emergency vehicle,” says Officer Jeff Kappel, an SPD spokesperson, who speculates that the diapers would restrict the horses’ movements. “I’ve actually been on calls where [horses have] responded” and enabled officers to chase suspects down. 1,200-pound horses galloping through city streets sounds kind of hazardous to this armchair opiner, but then, as David Starsky might say, so is crime. (Here’s another, perhaps likelier, chase scenario.)Of course, horse-diapers aren’t without their detractors; in 2002, animal rights activists in Vienna donned diapers themselves to protest that city’s horse-diaper law.