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dedbr

I was eleven when I met the county dog catcher. We had just moved to Ohio from Illinois and he was our neighbor. He had a truck paid for by the county and a rifle in his rifle rack, a double dog box in the back along with the rest of the tools of the trade; a pair of leather gauntlets to protect the hands and the face, a long metal pole to collar an animal at a safe distance or pull a reluctant one from under a house. A couple of cans of dog food to lure a canine to the catch. Chains and leads and collars and a few leg hold, steel traps.

I agreed to ride along and help the old guy at once when offered. I felt this could be a learning experience and the pay wasn't bad for a kid only 11 years old.

It was hot that summer. Blistering hot when you woke up and it just got hotter all day. We had to feed the animals in the pound first every day because at the time he was working alone and dogs and cats can drink a lot of water when it's hot.

We left the driveway, me eying the rifle and him talking about the dogs. Cats too, but we both loved dogs so that was the main topic of conversation. The pound at the time was at the small, local airport. After a bit we arrived at a patch of woods and drove into a driveway, pulled back in the woods a bit and killed the truck.

"Here we are." Where were we? I thought we were going to the dog pound. No buildings in site except the airport ones, but they were three football fields away. The only thing close was a rectangular box made of wood and elevated off the ground. The catcher was walking toward it and following, I saw finally that it was two rows of boxs with a small hole cut thru a wooden door behind which was the dog or dogs he had assembled in his sweeps.

A tin roof and four wooden walls held the animals. It was in the upper nineties and hot as blue blazes. Even at this early morning hour the heat as we opened the doors one after another to feed the poor ceatures was like an oven. The animals barely moved for the most part. The puppies moved when we opened the doors to their cages, but for the most part even these raucous youngsters were subdued.

Some boxes had a bit of straw or hay for bedding but all had the slats on the bottom spread so the excrement could just drop to the ground. The smell was overpowering as we walked from one door to another, dispensing the water and food that was waiting in steel drums to be doled out.

There was a lot of barking and howling now. The slosh of water being given to one would send the others in a frenzy. Some would drink and then kick it over in their box. That meant that they had to wait till we came back. It was sometimes a long wait.

It was hot........

We finished finally. I continued to poor extra water to the really thirsty ones who had drank a lot, hoping they would have enough to last them in the hot box. I knew it wouldn't be but an eleven year old can only do what he can. I didn't know how they had come to be here in the heat and filth of the boxes, the puppies and kittens and dogs and cats. Some were well groomed and others looked like they had been thru hell. Some were bandaged from fights with other dogs. The boxes sometimes held six or eight dogs. Fights broke out. The little dogs were the ones who suffered. The puppies and their mothers were kept away from the meaner dogs, and sometimes there would be two litters in the same box. It is a surprise to see twelve happy faces looking back.

We had two mean ones locked up. Dogs can go crazy just like us. I don't mean rabies, I mean just stark raving loony. The really mean ones will wait until you stick your arm in to get the food and water bowls and try to rip a piece of your skin loose for your trouble. We use an old limb to drag the bowls to the door, then quickly drag them out while the dog was being held at the end of a steel pole with a cable around his neck.

Twenty boxes in all with ninety-six dogs and assorted cats thrown in to keep it exciting.

The catcher and I got back in the truck and we left for our first stop.....

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ctwalrus

damn........

dedbr

I guess now is as good a time as any to explain my idea about what a dog catcher is. The politically correct term is Animal Control, but believe me folks, their really dog catchers. And a dog catcher is a garbage man. That's it in a nutshell.

We drove out to our first call of the day, sheep being attaked and mutilated by a group of dogs. Some of the sheep had tails bitten off, others were off their feet with their entrails hanging out. ( A word here about me at eleven years of age. I was raised around a farm and things like this were everday occurances to me. ) It was obviously dogs, the coyotes hadn't been released in the area yet. The farmer said he was almost sure that one of the bigger white ones was staying behind the creek behind the barn in a little copse of trees.

"Here's your chance boy," The catcher told me.

"Go on back there with the rifle and see if you can pick him up."

I grappped the 30-30 and chambered a round and went up to the side of the barn, sneaking along like the commando I saw myself as.

There he was, sitting there not fifty feet away, looking at me just like I was looking at him. '"What's a matter, boy?"

"He's just sitting there looking at me."

"Well hell, kill the son-of-a bitch."

I don't know if I pulled the trigger on purpose. I know I did pull it though becuase the dogs head just seemed to disintegrate as he slumped over and died.

The farmer was jubilant. "That's the main one", he said. "You sure did your job today."

"Now all ya gotta do is go and get him so we can get his tag number if he has one, and haul him in for count time."

I walked the fifty feet slowly. This didn't seem real at first. I had killed things before and a mouse or rat just doesn't feel the same.

There wasn't much left of his head so there was little blood to slop around as I came up to the truck. A roll of paper towels was waiting on the tail gate.
" Lift him up here. If he's been eating sheep it will still be in his stomach" .

We sliced him open and sure as anything there was the balls of wool attached to fresh guts. We had one of the sheep killers anyway. The farmer thanked us and we loaded up the weapons and put the carcass in a burlap sack we had for that job and then a garbage bag to keep the blood out of the truck.

The next call was the worst for me that day. Puppies. Most people are kind enough to call you to pick them up. Some just put them in a box and leave them to fend for theirselves. As you can guess, they almost all perish because of natural causes. The lady who had called had said that she just had a few. She had three females and seventeen pups of all ages. She said she didn't know how so many came up pregnant, but she couldn't feed them so could we find a nice home for them?

We picked them up then we asked for a donation to help offset the cost of room and board. We very seldom get it but it's always nice to ask.

The females didn't want anything to do with the dead sheep-killer smell so they balked at getting in the boxes, but the puppies just walked in and made theirselves at home. The mommies were loaded up quickly after that, so we headed back to the dog boxes to unload our first load of the day and re-feed and water the dogs so they wouldn't go into heat shock in their boxes.

I guess I should say something about the shootling of the dog. To me sometimes a killing like that rates no higher than a rat or a mouse getting into my food. A lesson driven home time and again into me is that sometimes man and animal can live side by side and sometimes they can't. You can't let a murderer live besides his natural prey and not expect him to act on it.

I had one of the puppies up in the front set with me when we pulled into the boxes. The catcher looked over and said. 'Don't get attached to them animals boy. It will just hurt when they leave."

"What do you mean when they leave?"

"Every two weeks the state truck comes from the lab and picks up the animals for research."

As he turned and walked away. the full import of what he said hit me. Animal research. Oh no.
I hated the sound of that. I was all for animal service and helping dogs and cats, but animal research. I don't know about that.

Bhikku

I've worked for animal control as a member of the kennel crew. Which means basically I got to scrape dogshit and haul frozen corpses into a flatbed all summer.

Fucking dangerous nasty ass job. I'm so glad I have a desk job now.

And some of those dogs/cats really *were* crazy.

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troublemaker_42

I love dogs, so that would never be the job for me. I could do it...I've almost had to do it with my own companion of 14 years. But a job that consisted of day in, day out shooting, euthanizing, or just capturing dogs wouldn't appeal to me. In a sense, it reminds me of my time spent working as a correctional officer, with one distinct fact being different-- Poeple in prison got there by their own devices and choices. Theres no way to know how the dogs became what they became. I know, I know....its a job someone has to do, and I appreciate that there are people out there willing to do so. Like Ded, I grew up on a ranch and I hunt, so the life-death cycle is something I'm intimately familiar with. However, i know my own limitations, and just don't see that as ever being a job I'd want to do

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forget the freak, you're just nature
Keep the gun oiled and the temple clean
shit, snort and blaspheme
Let the heads cool and the engine run
Because in the end,
everything we do
is just everything we've done..."Omega" by StoneSour
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politic...ma#Gun_control
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dedbr

More Dog Days to come......