what's the average salary of a yard dog?

Depending on the situation, some places don't require a CDL A if you never leave the property, but those are few and far. Most places by me want experience, but take guys that are green all day long.

 

I would like to know how ?

What's risky is us trying to back into a dock and one of these guys thinking its the Daytona 500 in the parking lot and almost hits us..

 

Probably net $500-600 week. Not easy job . Most guys spot about 75 trailers a shift(and walking back to open swing doors. Most ac's dont work well in those hostle trucks. Plus sliding open the rear cab door every few minutes.Ever wonder why hostlers are always angry?

 

Not the ones I deal with. The are greeted with a smile and fresh jokes daily.

Also never a dirty empty trailer brought in for a drop and hook. He knows he does not have to check it for debris, which makes his job easier.

Mikeeee

 

Driving a yard dog is not a "hard job". Moving a trailer with a conventional tractor with a sleeper is much more difficult. A OTR truck has blind spots that a Yard Dog does not have. Yard dogs have uncoupling buttons that keep you from having to pull the uncoupling lever. They have hydraulic lifts that raise the trailer so you do not have to crank the landing gear. It is simply a different skill. What happens is that after a day or two, it becomes just another job. You are operating a machine that requires you to move a large number of trailers but you are not doing so by hand. The Yard Dog is built for the job. Many hostlers make good Truckers but not all of them. Backing into the same places over and over becomes child play after awhile. And the pay is around $45,000 a year for a local sleep with mamma job.

 

"Driving a yard dog is not a "hard job".

I guess on road trucking must be an easier job! When I was out on the road I got fat! Three and a half years yard jockeying I got skinny!

JD!

 

In a perfect world perhaps.In that same perfect world an OTR driver has 3000 miles at their disposal every week.All drop and hook 24/7.This is easy to do in a ungoverned truck on all intestate coast to coast type runs.Obviously a sleeper the size of a small apartment with APU , satellite TV and every creature comfort imaginable. We however live in the real world and many yard dogs are just retired OTR trucks where the yard jockey has to do all the work manually.That is what I meant with it being harder then OTR and obviously riskier in this type of scenario.

 

My use of the phrase "not a hard job" was not meant to diminish the efforts of those good old Yard Dogs. It was meant to show that the phrase " hard job" is relative. In my life the hardest job I ever had was selling vacuum cleaners door to door. I hated it. And hating a job is the key to whether or not it is hard.

I love trucking. There are many things about the job that rate below other jobs I have had. It pays nowhere close to what I made as Executive Director of Banking. It isn't nearly as fun as making a high G turn in an F-15E. The hours are much longer then teaching high school. But I go to work with a smile on my face everyday.

I worked 4 hours for a company that made Clorox plastic jugs. I walked off at lunch and never looked back. There are folks that retire doing what I walked off from. What I call hard and what you call hard could be very different jobs.

 

Truck driving is more of a demanding then a hard job IMO.
The hours , the consequences of even small mistakes , the consuming nature of it is far greater than many jobs that may be harder on various fronts.
I just find that many of the reasons that make it attractive are being legislated out of existence.

 

My cousin manages a region for a company that handles yard dog services for several companies and she has close to 200 people under her. She offered me a job out of CDL school starting at $15 an hour, then $16.50 after 90 days, and $18 after 6 months. I had considered it but from speaking with several companies, Yard dog work, even if I left property to take trailers to warehouse from the shipper isnt and would not be considered driving experience.