Birdy

The deal is we’d be paid a dollar an hour plus a dollar a dog. That was a lot of money in those days. My old man was only pulling about thirty-five bucks a week as a plumber.

While the truck is being fixed up they send us down to Philadelphia for training. We’re just on the straight dollar an hour but we don’t have to do a damned thing but watch.

The township bought us gigantic nets especially made for catching dogs. They have short handles, only a foot or so long but the net part is almost four feet in diameter. They weigh over thirty pounds. There are racks built on the side of the wagon to hang the nets when we ride on the back.

Down in Philadelphia the dogcatchers are all black. They’re genuine professionals and one of them has been catching dogs for seven years. These guys catch dogs the way the Globetrotters play basketball. They made a real joy out of it.

They have a regular dog wagon, designed for the job; they can clamber around the fender and get inside behind the driver whenever they want. Only one of them at a time would ride on the outside. He sings out whenever he sights a stray dog.

They give us lessons with the nets first. They’d worked out left-hand hook shots, right hooks and straight-on jump shots. This last, they say, is for when the dog jumps at your throat. They’re having fun kidding around with us.

It’s all worked out like big game hunting. They talk about different dogs they’d gotten and about the big ‘mothers’ they’d had to wrestle into the truck, and they show us all the places where they’ve been bitten. They get a straight dollar and a half an hour no matter how many dogs they catch.