THE DOG HUNTERS (completed)

68 - WAG THIS!

The beers in me nodded in agreement. It was all about dogs, because it was all about the argument we continued to continue in my head. I nodded, all friendly, not surprised, not fighting his flow. "Yes,it's the dogs – how'd you know?"

The guard slowly nodded, then nodded faster. He was remembering something important. "The other guy was telling me about it. I just started here like eight days ago... And he said there might be some mix ups –something he was talking about this, like this computer misdirection..."

Either I was out of practice talking with the fancy world, or he had no communications skills. Either way I just waited, while he dipped back into his booth, and after a minute or so he fished up an address forme. South of here, not so far, on the boarder of Noodleville, an industrial area where the youth gangs were pretty intense. I'd never tramped through it much on account of rumors they'd set strangers on fire.

No matter. I collected my stuff and hiked to Noodleville, not wanting to spend any money on a cab or bus, knowing if I did I'd just get pissedat myself later.

The sun was gone when I found the address, a long corrugated steel warehouse amongst other warehouses, gravel dumps, and used-car dealerships, and lots of gravel, with train tracks behind them. The name of the place was painted on the side, and since there weren't any lights, since this was industrial shit-ville, I couldn't make it out. The front office was also dark, closed, locked up, and along the side stretched a warped cyclone gate that also appeared to be closed until I nudged it with the toe of my boot and found the padlock wasn't actually engaged.

In the back I heard barking.

I followed the barking and found myself stumbling into a doggy daycare center. I'd never seen or heard of anything like it before, though since then I've learned they're sort of a hot new thing. People acquire dogs for whatever reason - in my experience it's been because they're lonely and just hang out alone in their houses and aren't sure what else to do to deal -  and then they get their dog and leave them in the house all day when they're at work, and then feel guilty about leaving them at alone all that time, or they get frustrated because the dog way of dealing with this bullshit is to try to eat everything, and piss and shit everywhere. Back when I was still pretending to be a regular citizen, I knew about people who'd hire themselves out as dog walkers, but this place took it to the next level. The inside of the warehouse had been cleared out to make two large pens, one forbig dogs and one for little dogs. There was plenty of space to runaround, and then, to further sink the daycare theme, there were plastic play houses and plastic slides, the kind three-year olds would think are cool if they weren't too preoccupied with swiping around on their parent's phones.

When I showed up, there were about three or four big dogs and two little dogs roaming around with their tongues out and their tails wagging.Happy and sleepy. I have to say, as someone who used to roam with professional dog hunters, they looked in prime condition. A couple of folks in blue t-shirts emblazoned with a big paw print and WAG IT!written in fancy script, were engaged in the sort of end-of-shift cleaning duties you'd expect. The happy dogs appeared to be constantly shitting and pissing on the smooth concrete of their pens,and responsive staff cursed under their breath as they hopped over the little rustic white picket fence that separated and organized everything, scooping up shit, and then spot mopping the area where ithad hit.

My first reaction to WAG IT! was there must be a better way to dealing with piss and shit. Also, the barking. Happy dogs are dogs who bark,and in the cavernous structure the yips and yaps echoed around and ricocheted across the walls. I noted a rack with ear mufflers.

In between cleaning up piss and shit, and generally closing things down,one of the blue T-shirts noticed me, and said, "Who're you hear for?"