Is it cruel to hunt with dogs?

[Gempress]

I was just wondering what everyone's opinions were on this. Is it cruel to use dogs for hound-style hunting? I'm not talking about retreivers or pointers...I'm talking about the kind of hunting where the dog actually tracks down and attacks the animal.

In this area of the U.S., hounds are used for hunting squirrels, raccoons, hogs and occassionally coyote. The vet suspects that Zeus was actually being trained for hunting before we got him: he has an insanely high prey drive for small game and does not hesitate to attack and kill a prey animal. My father-in-law, when he was a boy in Kentucky, used to go coyote hunting with greyhounds.

I personally don't have a problem with hound-style hunting. In that respect, I think it's great to see dogs using the traits they were bred to have.

What do you think?

 

[Senna]

i think that both are not bad but not entirely good if not properly socialized with small animals,canines,etc

i dont care if they go and attack a squirrel but never a deer or other animal like that,that could hurt the dog badly

 

[jess2416]

I personally dont have a problem with it at all....

 

[MomOf7]

These hound dogs were bred for a reason and thats to hunt out rodents and such. THings are different now so there are different opinions. I personaly believe to each thier own. As long as no poaching is going on then great!

 

[Julie]

I think it is fine. I have many hunting friends and relatives that hunt bear, and raccoons with dogs.
I do have a problem with the way "some" hunters train and keep their dogs.
Some of them don't have a clue!
But I am happy to say not all of them are idiots.

 

[Renee750il]

As long as whatever is hunted is eaten, I'm not going to have a problem with it, but when it's something like a foxhunt, where the sport is in terrorizing another creature . . . well, I've got some real issues with that, as you can imagine!

 

[princess_poppy]

i was going to say the same thing^^^ as long as the animal being killed is going to be eaten thats ok but not other wise,

 

[smkie]

i dont think it is fine. One night i heard a baby racoon scream. I headed outside with a baseball bat not knowing what to expect. THere were to guys standing outside the woods watching their two dogs tear apart the baby. They said "it would only get into our garbage anyway" but when they saw how upset i was (waving bat over my head) they made a run for it. I was only a teen but i was angry as hell and gave chase. It was funny to hear them trip and smack into the trees. They didn't know i was young and a girl, only that i was giving chase. THe baby was dead when i got there. Hunting is suppose to have some kind of humanity to it. To bird hunt without a retriever is wrong. To shoot anywhere else but where a quick death is the goal is wrong. To let animals tear apart their prey, is a lousy stinking thing to to do. THere is no humanity to that at all.

 

[Renee750il]

That's the kind of thing I'm talking about . . . where the object is to terrorize something. That's just beyond wrong . . . And legitimate hunters don't kill the young.

 

[smkie]

unfortunatly when dogs are released around here to drive down the prey, unless treed that is usually the result. I don't know many people around here that eat racoon or possum so what exactly else is the point? They are also greatly risking their dogs health. A racoon can grab a dog flip underneath and disembowel before anyone can do anything about it. I heard the cat scream out the other night and thought that another cat was bothering Eddie. I let Mary out thinking she would do what she always does and chase it away. What i didn't know is a family of racoons were on the porch. I will never ever let her out again without first looking. We were lucky and the three bolted for the bushes instead of standing their ground but since there was only about 2 feet between them to start it could have ended quite ugly.

 

[Renee750il]

Oh, people around here eat both! I've even met people who ate groundhog . . . But there aren't a lot of "real" hunters anymore . . . mostly just bullies who carry high powered, scoped weapons and use all sorts of lures so they can get off on taking a life . . . You KNOW what I think about that kind . . .

 

[Danegirl2208]

though im not a fan of any hunting period..i do not have a problem with it, it is what they are bred to do..both of Chloes parents hunt and most of her siblings do too

 

[bubbatd]

I personally don't like it ....one night I heard the hounds baying and gun shots . I just wonder if the hunters were able to eat the raccoon who was sporting a red collar and gold tag with " Bandit " on it. He was about 1 1/2 yrs old and for the past year we had let him wean himself to the outdoors . Always came back ever 2 to 3 days for the marshmallows he loved. ( plus his scrambled eggs and cheerios ) He had his rabie shots and got along with our dogs and cats.

 

[Renee750il]

That's a real problem, Grammy, when they lose their fear of humans . . .

 

[bubbatd]

Yes... but his Mommy was dead and he was a tiny baby when he fell out of a tree. We had no choice than to save him . He was a great guy !

 

[Gempress]

I agree with hunters being responsible about how they hunt (no terrorizing, no baby animals, etc.) But I don't think a hunter necessarily needs to eat what they catch, as long as there is a valid reason behind the hunting. Take coyote and hog, for example. Nobody here would eat coyote, only certain kinds of hogs are edible. But coyotes can cause havok in the sheep/goat country over here--the usual reason for a coyote hunt is that somebody's flock was attacked. Same with hogs--they are even more destructive than coyotes in terms of farm and ranchland.

That was so sad about the baby raccoon, Smkie! Poor things. Idiot hunters. I bet they think they're such macho men. I'd like to send them hunting with some of the hog hunters here--the ones who hunt hog with only a knife. Let's see how brave those "men" would be then!

 

[Renee750il]

You're right about coyote and wild hogs, Gempress . . . The coyotes here have gotten so out of hand that the wildlife resources agency has licensed a very few bounty hunters to hunt coyote. We've got one in our quad. Wild hogs are a problem when you get more in the mountains here. Sometime back in the mid 1800s someone got the bright idea to import some of the REALLY wild hogs from Russia since the local boar weren't much sport, although they were significantly larger and actually good meat for the people who lived in this area. The imported hogs pretty much took over and decimated the native boar population since they were so much more aggressive. And they got larger because they had fewer natural predators and a more abundant food supply. Now there are LARGE, aggressive wild hogs in the mountains.

 

[Gempress]

We have the same problem here, Renee. Hogs are everywhere in Texas. And some idiot here also decided to introduce Russian Boar blood in an attempt to make the hogs bigger and the meat more edible. Wonderful. Now we have big, aggressive hogs.

 

[Renee750il]

Guess all the idiots had the same idea . . . and you know it was MEN

 

[bubbatd]

Me - Man ....Me ...Kill . For food ? Nah !! Me matcho !! I was mean ... I used to take down those tree outlooks deer hunters put up next to our woods.! If they wanted to hunt ... go to a forest !! This was a rural area with farms , fields and small woods. Nothing was more pleasant than to see deer and their young grazing in our woods.... The deer were of no threat to crops etc. Whenever we saw hunters on our NO HUNTING property I was irate !! Yes, my Dad and Tom were hunters , but not this way !