When it comes to cleaning up after his dog, Mike Wagner isn’t perfect.

He estimates that 90 percent of the time, he does his duty as a good citizen and cleans up after his golden retriever, Jessie, while they’re out walking together in public.

The rest of the time? Watch your step.

“You can’t find it at night sometimes,” Wagner said Tuesday as he rode through South Park on his bicycle with Jessie running ahead on a leash.

It’s the time of year when many people are out walking their dogs – a good time for a refresher course on the city’s requirements for keeping animals on leashes and cleaning up behind them.

Letting a dog or cat run at large carries a $30 city fine for first-time offenders. Failing to clean up excrement is a $10 fine.

Except in the city’s two off-leash dog parks – one at Riverfront Park and the other near Clinton Lake dam – dogs must be firmly attached to a leash or chain under the owner’s control. Or they must be kept inside a fence.

Cats aren’t considered to be “at large” as long as they stay on their owners’ property.

Don Mayberger and his dog Nokona go for an afternoon walk on Tuesday in the alley of the 700 block of Tennessee Street.

Also, it’s not just illegal to fail to clean up after an animal. It’s illegal under city code to appear with an animal in public “without some means for removal of excrement.”

City prosecutor Jerry Little said the majority of the city’s leash violations came from people who let their dogs get loose from home.

“It’s usually that the person doesn’t maintain real good control of the animal,” he said. “Maybe they leave them in the backyard and there’s a fence, but the fence is broken. A few get out by accident.”

Exact numbers weren’t available Tuesday about the number of “animal at large” citations issued in the city. Little said he had only seen one or two cases of failing to clean up excrement.

Animal control officers don’t automatically cite someone if they spot a dog that’s not on a leash. Wagner said he had received a warning for letting his dog run without a leash on the Kansas River levee.

Lawrence Police spokeswoman Kim Murphree said officers had discretion about whether to give a citation, based on their assessment of the situation and previous related cases.