Regarding whether or not hunting game “works,” a hunt’s best authority on that are the farming landowners who request that the hunt cross their land regularly in order to prevent, for example, coyotes from packing up. I’m not a wildlife scientist myself, but I do know that the cattle farmers in our area would be a lot less likely to allow us to cross their property and put hoof-shaped divots in it if they didn’t feel the hunt was providing at least a small service to them. Certainly, in England, farmers felt the hunts there—before the ban—were very useful in keeping the fox population from getting out of control. And, again, those farmers will use other methods that are far less discriminatory about “the innocent,” as you put it, if hunting of one kind or another is not allowed. Poison and trapping puts pretty much everything at risk in the area; hunting with hounds does not.

I don’t know how EmilyS got the idea that I said “a lot of hound hunting activity isn’t about pest/vermin control.” If you’re live hunting, you’re doing it as much to aid your landowners as anything. If you’re drag hunting, you’re not hunting anything.

Also on the “huh?” list: I’m not sure where you’re typing from, EmilyS, but deer hunting with hounds still occurs. It’s still a significant form of hunting in France, very much along the traditional lines, and in the US people often use hounds as they hunt deer, although—and I hasten to say that I’m not an expert on US deer hunting—I think most of that is using the hounds to flush the deer to guns or bows. Again, I am not an expert there. I do know about the French, though: classic mounted stag-hunting, with hounds.

EmilyS writes, mistakenly: “why we use dogs to kill rabbits, foxes, groundhogs, badgers, possums, raccoons, etc etc. with no limits and with no concern for the innocent.” There are, in fact, quite a number of limits. We hunt in particular seasons, for example. Hunters are licensed, for another example. “Concern for the innocent” is one reason we’d rather hunt/pursue than leave farmers to lay traps and poison. Foxhunters are not really into wanton slaughter, as EmilyS seems to believe—and it would be helpful if she understood at least the rudiments of foxhunting before attempting to sound like an expert critic (like the existence of hunting seasons and off seasons, licensing, laws that prevent interstate trafficking of wildlife so that people can’t just bring a fox or other game willy-nilly from anywhere into their area to hunt it, and other limits EmilyS is clearly unaware of).

I understand if people are against hunting. I don’t even blame them. It’s their choice, and people have their own reasons for things. I’m more of a bleeding heart than EmilyS would ever believe, myself. But, for heaven’s sake, it’s only logical to understand your subject before you embark on a critique of it.

One reason I like my English shepherds so much. Plenty of drive, but well-governed by a functioning brain.

Anyone remember the pertinent scene in She Devil?

And yeah, the ability to turn on dime, honed by generations of selection-by-hamburger.

Comment by LauraS — December 23, 2009

I would have bet my house that the late, great Queen Heather would have sailed right off that cliff. Maybe not for a tennis ball, but certainly for a water Kong. Field bred? Drive? Single-minded focus? You bet.

Christie saw a coulda-been-fatal involving Heather and a rip tide on a beach in Sonoma County, Calif. Heather thought she could beat the Pacific Ocean. We couldn’t believe we got her back alive.

Let’s see. Among the SAR dogs I’ve trained with: 1 is dead from foxtails, 2 were retired due to chronic health problems caused by foxtails, and most have required trips to the E-Vet due to inhaled or ingested foxtails — my dog twice, and Coal has had 5 such trips.

Coonhounds treeing bear and going after cougar - only the fast smart dogs survive.

The extremely common OBESE pet dog — all that extra food they are luved with slices a few years off their lives, and greatly increases their risk of orthopedic and other health problems.

Ya know, there’s probably nobody reading this blog who uses catahoulas on wild boar, or uses coonhounds on bear or cougar. But I’ll bet there’s a whole bunch of pet owners here who have luved Fluffy or Fido into high risk obesity.

Herding dogs who work cattle — relatively high mortality rate, that job. It makes for strong selection pressure for lightning fast reflexes, with instant stops and turn on a dime agility. That selection pressure is probably the reason why my English Shepherd SAR dog didn’t fly off a cliff after his tennis ball when I unknowingly flung one there. Some of the SAR dogs I know probably would have been dead in the same situation. The wonderful field bred retrievers, working bred GSDs, and the really nice APBT in my SAR training group — there’s a good chance that any one of them would have sailed off that cliff. So, yesiree I’m a fan of breeding dogs for cattle herding.
[Note to self: topo maps of redwood forests are somebody’s wild a** guess]

And come to think of it, I know some nice catahoula and coonhound SAR dogs too, whose working genetics didn’t appear out of nowhere.

Anyway, I’m not opposed to boar hunting, bear hunting, cougar hunting, cattle herding, or K9 SAR. Overfeeding pet dogs — now that I’ve got a problem with.

The appeal to authority is always bogus, but when the “authority” is anonymous, it is merely laughable. Your attitude towards risk is very telling.

You cite what “everybody who joins CARDA” is told, but you aren’t a member of CARDA. You make reference to tracking lost animals, but who knows if that is fact or fantasy?

My own, real SAR dogs share risk with me. It’s my job to determine what is an acceptable risk for both of us. But there is always risk.

There’s risk, danger, conflict in stock work. Even a ram or a buck can kill you or a dog, and a cow can do so easily.

There’s risk when I open the back door and the dogs dash down the hill to drive off the predators that have come for the chickens.

I don’t consider the dairy farmer from whom I bought my first English shepherd to be abusive to either dogs or cows, though some of the former have been badly injured while working the latter. I don’t consider the breeders from whom I’ve bought German shepherds — breeders who select and train for police work — to be abusive, though their dogs are put in harm’s way as part of their jobs. Perhaps you would consider police work and stock work to be animal abuse. So you probably shouldn’t buy a dog from such a person.

If I thought a person was an animal abuser, I wouldn’t buy a dog from him.

You apparently consider the hunter from whom you bought a coonhound to be abusive towards his dogs. Good work! So you support dog abuse with your money then? And conversing with this scion has made you an expert on North American hunting practices.

See, I am a hunter.

I am keenly aware of the ways in which HSUS, PeTA, and Random Animal Rights Whackos characterize MY hunting practices, and the degree of disconnect with reality that this agitprop represents.

I have actually gone coursing with sighthounds, in the Central Valley of California, where there is suitable habitat for that kind of hunting. I witnessed no animal abuse, and no vicious hounds tearing any screaming anything to bits. I did witness some of the most magnificent athletes that artificial and natural selection ever produced. I met lovely, thoughtful people who care tenderly for their hounds and are keenly concerned for the welfare of the prey species. And I participated in a human-animal relationship so primal, so essential, that I pity all who either never have this opportunity or who have fallen so far from our human core that they would not recognize it for what it is.

Debating hunting with someone who gets her information about it from animal rights’ websites is like discussing sex with some glassy-eyed teen zealot with a silver ring on her finger.

They are teased and abused and abandoned in the wilds. It is a sad state of life for these dogs. Most are Coonhounds.

Why do boar hunting dogs wear leather vests? For good looks?

How many ex-bear hunting dogs do you own? It doesn’t surprise me that you would make a snarky comment. You do snarky really really well.