I’ve seen enough headlines about “dog catchers” that today I finally had to dig in a little on this job that seemingly everyone hated and nobody wanted.

A hundred years ago, dog licensing wasn't a formality. It was law, and somebody had a job to enforce it. That job made you the most hated person in town, sometimes the most endangered, and by the end of the decade, some cities couldn't even find anyone willing to take it.

Dog licensing wasn't random bureaucracy. In Wisconsin, a county clerk laid out exactly what the law was for. It protected people and animals from rabies, protected livestock and fowl from injury, and created a fund so farmers could actually be compensated when a vagrant dog killed their stock. Every dog six months or older by January first owed a license, no exceptions for timing.

Dunn County alone had 3,500 licensed dogs that year, and still, the clerk said, a long list of owners hadn't paid. Someone had to chase down that list. That someone was the dog catcher.

By August, one Pennsylvania city found out just how unpopular the role had become. Franklin's city council authorized hiring a dog catcher. They put the word out that applications were open.

Nobody applied. Not one person.

The city controller tried to personally recruit someone directly. He still couldn't find a single taker, even offering it as full time work with a guaranteed salary. A city government, actively trying to give away a paying job, and getting no response at all.

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It's not hard to understand why nobody wanted the job once you see what enforcement actually looked like on the ground. In West New York, a delivery driver spotted the town dog catcher on the street and made an instant decision to engage in a high speed chase. His dog was riding in the truck seat beside him. He would rather floor it, be arrested, and still have the dog impounded rather than hand him over quietly.

The dog catcher chased him down in his own car and arrested him for reckless driving and interfering with an officer. A police lieutenant with ten years on the desk said it was the first time in that entire stretch anyone had been arrested specifically for interfering with a dog catcher. But another headline and story shows even more why no one would wan this job. Check out these teenagers and the slingshot they used on one.

Not every dog catcher matched the stereotype of a hated enforcer. In Santa Ana, a poundmaster named Hadley Hershey ran his operation almost entirely on compassion. The city had no pound at all, so when he found a stray, he took it home himself, fed it, and waited to see if anyone came looking.

He kept seven strays of his own permanently, dogs nobody ever came back for. When asked why he didn't just find them homes and move on, he said simply that he'd like to keep them all if he could.

One boy came back four days in a row asking about a stray he'd found wandering, a little black and white pup. When he was finally allowed to take him home, he wrapped his arms around the dog and said the only thing that mattered to him. He was going to call him Joker.

Somewhere between the county clerk explaining why licensing existed, and a city government unable to give the job away for free, the entire role stopped making sense. Animal control today looks nothing like it did then. No mob attacks, no truck chases, no unfilled postings sitting open for weeks because nobody would take a job that guaranteed public hatred.

It solved a real problem. Rabies, loose livestock, genuine public safety. Almost nobody who did it was thanked for it.

See you tomorrow. – Chris

Sources:
The Dunn County News, February 11, 1926
The Plain Speaker, August 17, 1926
The Jersey Journal, August 27, 1926
The Register, August 9, 1926