A friend recently repeated this oft heard phrase: “I wouldn’t vote for him/her for dog catcher!”
And it got me to wondering…
Was there ever a time people actually voted for the dog catcher? If so…why? Does the job still appear on the ballot anywhere?
Serious response: good question, and I’ll welcome the chance to learn the real answer.
Joke response: No, it is not an elected office. The reason is that they couldn’t find any politician who could be elected… 
I live in a little, hick town in Indiana. Population of around 300 or so people. We’ve been having problems with 2 Boxer dogs that have some sort of skin disease, and their owner let them out of their enclosure, because of it. He won’t take care of them OR their problem.
I called the county sheriff’s office and told them of the situation. I was told this:
“We could come out and pick 'em up, but, you people don’t have a town marshall! Besides, our dog catcher is at work right now, and it’ll be a few days before he could get out there, anyway. You might try calling the humane shelter.”
That was the end of the conversation and he hung up. Needless to say, I was quite pissed at his attitude. I DID call the humane shelter, which I knew was going to be fruitless, since I do some work there. I was told that I needed to call the county sheriff’s office and get the dogcatcher. He NEVER made it out here. Everytime someone calls for him, they get some silly excuse or a runaround, or both.
Come to find out, the dogcatcher is a ‘town thing’ around here. Each town is supposed to have one. Our town did, until we found out that all the dogs that he captured, were taken out and shot, without even trying to find their owners. He was relieved of his dogcatching duties after that, and was fined and reprimanded (more like a slap on the hands, really).
It’s been several years, and we STILL don’t have a dogcatcher out here. People are taking things into their own hands now, and it’s NOT good.
From what I could gather in Googling Indiana statute law, it appears that for the most part, it’s in the hands of town government how to handle such things. So your best bet is to talk to whoever is in charge of your local town government, However, there is this in state statute:
So you could go to the judge of the town court, swear a complaint that the guy who owns the boxers has violated Section 7 by the actions you’ve described, and let him take it from there. A court order will make the county animal control people act, where your contacting them as a private citizen gets put low on their priority list. Hope that helps.
Thank you, Polycarp. I’ll go to the next town board meeting and see what happens!
So I am to assume that no one really votes for dog catcher? All the references I can find refer to the phrase, not to any actual election. Too bad. I can just imagine the mudslinging between candidates for this hotly contested position!
That settles it, then:
“Dog-catcher” is an elected office.
Q.E.D.
The expression “couldn’t be elected dog-catcher” goes back to the 1800’s.
I found one incidence in the 1890’s where a dog catcher was “elected” by a vote of the town council in California. I remember doing this before and never could find a “popular vote” kind of election where one was running.
What, the lobsters have no protection under the law? That’s obscene!
This page on the web site of the U.S. embassy to Japan, explaining the large number of local, state, and federal elections American can vote in, just picks up the joke, ending with the statement that maybe somewhere dog catchers actually are elected.
Wikipedia mentions that the office of dog catcher is an elective one in some localities (without giving examples), but some posts in the talk section to this article cast doubt on the veracity of this.
Google shows us many instances of hired or appointed animal control officers, but never any such elected position. I think that speaks to the political nature of this joke… it’s true, but misleading. If you were to say that Bill Clinton couldn’t be elected dogcatcher, well, technically that’s correct in every way. Nobody can be elected dogcatcher. I am pretty sure this has never been anything but a rhetorical flourish, numerous internet mirrors to a half-ass Wikipedia article to the contrary.
That’s Indiana law. If you find a wild or pet lobster wandering around Indiana which is the subject of neglect or abuse, I’m sure the Hoosier legislature will be pleased to act on the matter! :dubious:
A number of New Hampshire towns elect a Hog Reeve, responsible for rounding up stray livestock. Actually, the election is by Town Meeting, and by tradition it goes to a man who was married in the previous year and is presumably young and fit.
They also elect a Fence Viewer. That lucky person gets to settle property-line disputes.
From what I gather from talking to people here in town, the town board is supposed to hire someone for the position of dogcatcher. BUT, in light of what the past moronic assholes DO to the dogs they capture, they’ve let it go and not hired anyone else for the job.
To take the animals to the humane shelter, you must pay $10 or so, for each animal, even if you tell them that it isn’t your animal, and that it IS a stray. I guess they don’t give breaks for dogcatchers.
As for what the town pays the dogcatcher, I have no idea, but I’m assuming it isn’t much. I’ve heard that it was probably no more than $50 per month.
That isn’t enough to pay for each stray animal that they would need to bring to the shelter. I guess that is why the past dogcatcher took them out and shot them. Apparently, the asshole was NOT going to use HIS monthly pay to drop off the dogs at the shelter. The person that they had hired for the job, is an unemployed, no-good, lazy, drug-ridden, drunk-most-of-the-time kind of guy.
That was the town board’s FIRST mistake. They’ve just sort of ‘let it go’ and the dogs either painfully starve to death, or get hit by cars, suffer and die.
It’s a sad situation in these little towns were no one cares enough to actually do anything about it. You can’t get enough people together to even TRY to do anything. I can’t do it alone, that’s for damn sure! I take in as many animals as I possibily can, on my own. I feed and water them, love them and I will try to find them a home, which is what I do first (I talk to my vet’s office and put ads in the paper and ads in the online newspaper, plus, a few posters around town. You have to be picky on who you give the dogs to, as you don’t want them to be taken and sold to medical companies for experiements, either. I check out each home that will take an animal off my hands and I follow up on the animal, too). Then, after awhile, if I can’t find them a home, I must take them to the shelter or to a local no kill shelter (It is currently full to capacity, so no more of that for awhile!). If I have to take them to the shelter, I pay the cost to leave them there, usually to die. I can’t do anymore than I’m doing and it’s heartbreaking to have to leave an animal at the shelter. I am a puddle of tears and a shattered heart everytime I must do it.
It seems that everyone else in my town is either too lazy or too stupid to help make the situation better.
New York towns still also have Fence Viewers, but in a fit of intelligence some years ago, the legislature specified that if a Fence Viewer is not appointed, the duties for the job fall to the Assessor(s). I had a great-grandfather who was an elected Fence Viewer back in the 1800s.
Interesting responses. Perhaps it was a valid term in PA years ago, but in my lifetime I’ve only heard reference to the Animal Control Officer who is typically under the police department in terms of command structure, sometimes that position being filled by a retired police officer. Appointed or openly hired, but never elected.
Growing up in a semi rural area our dog catcher was the farmer down the road. The position was tendered and interested parties submitted bids. The lowest bid didn’t always win but the impound fee to retrieve your dog was kept by the dogcatcher. I suppose if your dog was always going “missing” or the dogcatcher was selling cheap sausage on the side, the community would have a say in whether or not his tender was accepted the following year. Kind of like electing I guess.
Used too. The office was abolished some thirty years ago.
Pittsburgh has an animal control department with many employees. The job of animal control officer pays well and is a coveted civil service job. It is a part of the rodent control department which is a division of garbage collection. People who want to be animal control officers in Pittsburgh have to start off as a garbage person and be promoted internally.
In the town I live in which is about 50 miles east of Pittsburgh, animal control is done by a private individual who draws up agreements with different mumicipalities to do their animal control work. He charges a set amount yearly, then charges additionally for each animal handled. He keeps dogs 72 hours to allow them to be claimed, then kills them.
It turns out that there was someone elected to the position of dog catcher in Duxbury, VT, and he held the position for about 15 years. Can’t Get Elected Dogcatcher? Try Running In Duxbury, Vt. : NPR
Later, someone did some investigating and found out that it wasn’t supposed to be an electable position, but the good news is that he was appointed properly to that same position. ‘You Couldn’t Get Elected Dogcatcher!’ No, Seriously : NPR