THE DOG HUNTERS (completed)

28 - DOG TOUR

"Boo."

Tinto, back from his morning stroll, with breakfast: peanut butter, some kind of bakery bread, and a carton of orange juice. Five o'clock, on the dot, as Tinto was glad to remind me. Lulubelle instantly awoke,as though he had been awake for a while, instantly fussing with his notebooks.

The morning routine was simple and effective, Tinto slathered peanut butter on the bread, then we all munched and slurped orange juice.Tinto explained to me coffee was no good, it got you too wired and paranoid, and made you pee. Orange juice appeared to have properties that heightened certain senses, which aided the Dog Hunt. Lulubelle gave a rough overview of where we were going and the forecast on the day's potential dogs. From there it was determined what the spread was. Today was between four dogs or fifteen. When that was established, the juice all gone, Tinto cut the top to the carton –the morning's piss jug.

Lulubelle changed, with our backs him. Tinto had apparently changed his outfit somewhere already in his morning adventures, now he was a little more blue denim than black. Finally, Tinto gently lifted Lulubelle back into the stroller's baby seat. The camp was gathered, folded and tucked into the side car with what appeared to be one sweeping motion.

Then we were off on another hunt!

And so was my life as a dog hunter. Every day was the same schedule, and the only difference was the amount of dogs we saw. Keep moving.That's what we did. Don't go too fast, or too hurried, just move with purpose, always be passing through. Always keep arguing. Always love and adore the dogs. Love the Lemon Meringue Marauders. Love the Fluffy with Attitudes. Love the Coarse Black, the Short Grass Thumper, the Quiet Mighty. If I knew a damn thing about dogs I would tell you what these creatures really were, but I don't, so I won't.As far as I could tell, the two hunters were consistent in their labels.

I stayed with them for about five months. Five very solid, very good months. Five months spent hiking all over Ace City, zig zagging through a series of residential neighborhoods, catching The Early Walkers of the morning, and then in the afternoon, the Late Bonuses.During that time we were never hassled because the Dog Hunters had their shit wired, they kept moving and with their charts and field savvy, seemed to always stay one step ahead of all bullshit. They had their world, and it was so realized it was invisible. I guess I was invisible too. I imitated their game, and tried not to fuck up their play. Tinto had hooked me up with a new pare of pants, a button down shirt, a windbreaker and baseball cap. Lulubelle made sure I understood I understood their point system, mostly so I could help settle disputes over the final tally at the end of the day. The big issue usually came down to "seeing" versus "hearing." Seeing a dog was a point, but then (according to Lulubelle), "About a year ago, I guess, we hit this dry patch, like we were just... It was pretty bad, we kept getting under the spread, Tinto starting going nuts, thinking we were scaring them away, like maybe they'd started smelling us. He couldn't figure it out, and if you haven't noticed already, he's a total control freak. Bad times. He started wasting a bunch of his money on sponge baths – I mean it was freaking me out too, and so I created the "Hear for Half" program. Basically you hear a dog then it's worth half a point. Really helps with the spread and also if dogs are barking at us, suddenly that's a good thing,it's not like we're being invasive. It's getting us points, right?The only thing is, even with two sharp minds it can get hard to keep it all correct. I mean I do my best with the notation, but I'm also noting a million other things. I've got a lot to log, a lot of data to stay on top of."