Italian authorities accuse man of training dog to fly tip

A man in Sicily trained his dog to dump bags of rubbish on the side of a road in an attempt to evade CCTV cameras, local authorities have said.

Video footage released by Italian police captures a small dog leisurely walking down a road in Catania's San Giorgio district carrying a bag of rubbish in its mouth before dropping it by a roadside.

Local authorities have claimed the dog's actions - which were captured on video on two consecutive days - are evidence that "leaves little room for doubt" that the canine had been trained to drop off the rubbish bags so that its owner could avoid being filmed discarding them.

"Ingenuity can never become an alibi for incivility", the City of Catania said in a post on its official Facebook page.

Catania officials described the dog's act as "cunning" and "doubly wrong", adding that the man was "exploiting the unwitting four-legged friend".

"Respect for decorum and the environment is everyone's duty," it added.

The post did not say whether any action had been taken against the man.

Fly tipping is illegal in Italy but it remains a common problem.

Local authorities have been trying to step up efforts to get a grip on the issue by using methods such as surveillance cameras to catch culprits.