Paperboy Chronicles: Dogs

No 2 in a series about being a paperboy in the 60's

Being a paperboy, I really learned a lot about dogs, both the easy and hard way. There must have been a hundred dogs around my route. I knew all of them and they knew me.

Until this day, I see dogs everywhere. It’s built in. Any stump, shadow or clump of weeds I see a dog waiting or just looking at me for a chance to nip my heels.

Not all of the dogs were bad, but most of them naturally took an interest in that noisy bike and thump of papers landing on theirs or nearby porches. One dog would set off an avalanche of barking protests from one end of my route to the next.

As a paperboy you don’t have time to socialise or play with the dogs. They weren’t ready for that and there was no time. In the winter I had to move very fast otherwise it was too dark by the time I finished my route. And that is when it could become dangerous.

Dogs have a territory to defend and a paperboy is an intruder. A noisy one. I tried telling the dogs to shhhh… but it only made them more angry. The best strategy was to be as stealthy as a clanky stingray bike could be. It was best to place the newspaper on the porch in certain areas where the dogs were meaner.

What I mean by mean is the way they bark and growl. The small dogs yapped, the big ones bawled but the ones in the middle gnashed and growled something fierce. The truth of the matter is that the big dogs didn’t chase or try to bite it was the small mid sized ones.

My Sunday morning deliveries started at 5am, the other days were afternoon. Many times on Sunday at dawn there were a number of dogs that travelled in a pack. That’s when I made sure I had some good sized stones in my bags. A couple of times I had to use them. They knew me and stayed clear of me. I was a really good shot.

I leaned that dogs are very brave when their master is nearby or are in their own property, but are mainly cowards when nobody is around and they are outside their property. Their property extends into the middle of the road and a little on each side of their property. They would rarely chase you any farther than one or two house lengths down. That is why it was a good strategy to go fast.

It was never a good idea to stop. One good trick I learned was to reach down as if I was picking up a rock. They knew that move and would hightail it out of there in a hurry.

I few times I was nipped in the legs and heel. Usually they would grab my pants and if they got a hold of it would pull leaving documentary holes. I learned another lesson. Don’t try to kick the dog with a back leg early. They would easily grab your foot and then you are doomed. Either you fell off the bike or got a really bad bruise on the foot. Most dogs don’t really want to hurt you badly. They want to scare you into submission. They never got me there.

If they went for my legs i would wait until they lunged and only then would use all of my force and push back with my foot on top of their nose. The trick was to wait until they committed to jumping at you. They would get a foot powered by a leg that peddled every day up and down hills with big bags of newspapers. Bang, never to be chased again. They would only do fake chases, where they would run a bit then pull back. It became a tradition.

The worse case scenario I had a hard wrapped newspaper rolled into a very tight bundle. I was able to throw that spinning and clank any dog on the head that was chasing me. A bad idea if I was short of papers.

Not all of the dogs were bad. Many of them just liked to go along with me like chaperones through their territory. They would stop where I stopped, smell around and pee. They acted more or less like they were my dog, being bored about my job and after a few minutes they would disappear and head back to their home territory.

There was one customer that had a very mean dog that loved to scare me by running up to the fence and banging against it gnashing and growling mixed with frantic barks as it I had just robbed their house. He did that every single day until I learned to sneak up and only made noise leaving.

They say dogs have excellent hearing but I beg to differ. I have outsmarted many dogs just by being very quiet. I think they are like people. They have to want to listen for something and be prepared, otherwise they are more or less like us. Only louder sounds catch their attention.

Because of that dog I always launched the paper over the yard on onto the porch like a missile. I was usually a great shot. It did get the paper banged up a bit when it cartwheeled over the walkway, but I wasn’t going to get bitten by that dog and that was the price of fear.

A few times the paper didn’t quite make it and landed outside the porch. It got rained on and soggy. Very hard to read a soggy paper. I got a call from mr. M who said the customer was furious and was going to complain to the head office.

Now mr M. was a real company man and didn’t want any unpleasant reviews from the head office. He told me under no uncertain terms to place the paper on the porch and not to throw it. I told him there was a mean dog. He asked me was I ever bitten by the dog? I said no. Then he said, “so no problem then, put it on the porch you’ll be safe”. How he knew that I had no idea. But I also knew that I wouldn’t get extra bingo cards or points for some of the neat stuff at the Friday meetings at the paper shack.

Using my stealth mode I made sure not to make any noise going down the road. The dog lived in the back yard of the custom and only came around to the front yard when I made a lot of noise. So, I figured out that if I was very quiet I could open the gate go almost up to the porch. Place the paper just under the eves and go out quietly. I would close the gate with no noise, almost at all, then peddle on to my next stop. The black medium sized mean dog would only hear me after I left because at that time I didn’t care if I made any noise.

One day I opened the gate went up to the porch and placed the paper then turned around to leave. There he was between me and the gate. I had nowhere to go. No stones and no ideas. I froze. I looked at him and he looked at me with a gotcha twinkling in his eyes. I felt betrayed by my stealth tactics.

It seem like a life time. He didn’t move, didn’t growl or bark or anything. He looked at me like, “it’s your move, whacha goin ta do?”. So out of no choice I just walked towards him and the gate, non threatening, not fearful. Like I owned the place. He moved out of my way. I opened the gate and then slammed it shut. All of the sudden all hell broke loose. He was at the gate gnashing, barking frantically as if I just arrived there to, again rob their house.

I think he just wanted to let me know that he had my number. It was a game. You are the paperboy, I am the dog.