Opening a can of worms, sorry

[ACooper]

*not picking on you here coop...yours was just the one I hit "quote" on...*
How about hunting simply because they enjoy it? Sure, they eat what they kill, but that's not the primary reason for being out there.

No one needs to hunt for food. We have grocery stores.

As long as you eat what you kill, or at least let someone else eat what you've killed.........I don't consider that a waste. If you enjoy hunting and fishing there's nothing wrong with that IMO! My dad and uncle used to keep beagles and hunt with them. Rabbit, squirrel and small things like that. They also hunted dear and other things local to the area. Once their own freezers were filled they didn't stop hunting/fishing as long as the season was still on, they'd start helping to fill other people's freezers as well because they too loved to be out there doing it, LOL

They didn't hunt for a trophy kill, nothing wasted or stuffed, it was eaten not wasted. As far as not needing to hunt because there's grocery stores, have you SEEN the prices? I'm ready to take up deer hunting myself to stock my freezer! That's like saying nobody needs to plant a garden because we have stores, LOL........but we all know it tastes better fresh, same goes for meat

EDIT: Sort of related.....

Once a deer (very young) ran out and crashed into the side of my car. Killed it instantly, broke it's neck. I was upset about the death and also upset thinking it was just going to sit on the side of the road and rot. My sister was with me and we got out, hoisted the deer by the feet into the trunk and took it to some friends who hunt. They dressed it out and ate it. That made me feel much better is some way that the deer didn't die for nothing..........at least it served some use if it had to die anyway.

most people that hunt w/dogs are out for the joy of it for themselves & the dogs.

Yep, the hunters I know don't get up early and freeze their butts off "just for food" but the food is definitely a bonus, LOL Again, as long as they aren't killing for the sake of sport and use what they kill I am completely fine with hunting and fishing. I've helped pluck more feathers and scale more fish than I care to remember, nothing in me loves that, ROFL, but food is food and I'd have no problem wringing a chicken's neck or help slaughter a hog if it served a purpose.

 

[corgipower]

Point was...in hunting the dog is being asked to fight another animal simply for the fun in it. Having a freezer full of meat is just a bonus.

 

[ACooper]

Point was...in hunting the dog is being asked to fight another animal simply for the fun in it. Having a freezer full of meat is just a bonus.

USEFUL...........USEFULNESS is the whole point and argument most are attempting to make.

Some dogs may or may not actually enjoy fighting, not going to argue that point because I really don't know or understand it. Some dogs probably enjoy hunting more than others as well. But the usefulness of it is really what is the difference. Hunting = food, enjoyment can also come with that. Fighting = ?, even if enjoyment comes from it.......what is the usefulness of letting them take the risk? That is what I don't understand and probably never will no matter how many comparisons are made, LOL

 

[smkie]

All i can see in my head is the two fighting pitbulls that were brought into the animal hospital when I was a child. Sitting there looking at their torn and bloody flesh gave me nightmares for weeks. Don't dogs have to be encouraged early on to fight like that? I don't pretend to know about what it takes. I coudln't do that to my dog. When they hurt I hurt right along with them. I don't see any sport in what I saw in that clinic and as I read this thread I see in my head those awful videos that were posted on here with the same torn flesh. To harm an animal like that imo is not right. Not today, not yesterday and heaven forbid not tomorrow.

 

[PWCorgi]

Not too much to add to the pit bull discussion (not very knowledgeable on the breed or the history) , other than I will never be okay with pitting dogs against one another.

You really believe this? Small wonder you've seemingly bought the HSUS version of the APBT story and seemingly haven't processed any information that doesn't jibe with your opinion.

Oh, and humans should take the bullets other humans shoot -- we invented it, we perpetuate the violence, we should man up and take the consequences of being human.

When it comes to this haven't humans ALWAYS been the ones to put the dogs in harms way? We are the ones that train them to herd where they could die, we set them loose on game that could kill them, etc.
Plus, if we are going to say it is okay to fight pit bulls because they like it, I am sure many of those police dogs LOVE their jobs.

 

[Romy]

USEFUL...........USEFULNESS is the whole point and argument most are attempting to make.

Some dogs may or may not actually enjoy fighting, not going to argue that point because I really don't know or understand it. Some dogs probably enjoy hunting more than others as well. But the usefulness of it is really what is the difference. Hunting = food, enjoyment can also come with that. Fighting = ?, even if enjoyment comes from it.......what is the usefulness of letting them take the risk? That is what I don't understand and probably never will no matter how many comparisons are made, LOL

I think there was a post earlier in the thread that explained testing them in the pit was another way to evaluate potential breeding stock. You wouldn't want a non-game dog used in your hog hunting line, and if the dog has never been put in a situation where its gameness has been tested on the field then you need to find another way to test it.

Note that I do not support fighting dogs in any way, but I do see people's points about it being a different era and it was (mostly) done for different purposes than modern American dog fighting. I used to breed gamecocks and got a lot of flak from people who thought they were vicious evil birds who would slit your throat and peck out your eyes given the chance (all of that is patently untrue btw). I LOVED those birds, and the same traits that made them fighters in the pit made them superior range birds. I will never forget old Lefty. Our one armed gamecock who single...wingedly (?) killed two mink at once saving all the chooks in the pen. A commercially bred rhodie cock would have never stood a chance. When we had a good gamecock around we rarely lost birds to predators. Including hawks and eagles. Without those old timers and cockfighting we wouldn't have those birds today. I just hope people don't lose them.

And for the record, I don't have problems with trophy hunting for the most part. It's not my style, but a huge amount of wildlife conservation revenue is generated from taxes and licenses paid by trophy hunters, and by independent organizations founded by trophy hunters.

Heck, in Africa there are some vast private hunting preserves that provide employment for entire villages, pays for officers whose entire job is to stop poachers, food for the villages (because most people don't pay to ship a zebra carcass back to America or Europe) and makes it profitable for them to keep native species on that land instead of cattle or something that is going to damage the ecosystem. Once the white rhino was taken off the endangered species list and hunting legalized, the population exploded because all these preserves wanted their own herd of white rhinos and adjusted the populations of other animals on the preserves to accommodate rhinos. Even though it sounds counterproductive, if they legalized black rhino hunting the black rhino's future would be secure.

 

[PlottMom]

Don't dogs have to be encouraged early on to fight like that?

No, no they do not. Especially not pit bulls - they are a bit more genetically programmed to dog on dog aggression. If they had to be encouraged, anyone who started with puppies wouldn't have to worry about ever crating unsupervised multiples while they ran to the grocery - but I know few people who don't.

 

[Nechochwen]

No one needs to hunt for food. We have grocery stores.

There's so much that's just plain wrong with this statement that I don't even know where to begin.

 

[Pops2]

i think she means that industrial agriculture provides for all our actual needs.

 

[PixieSticksandTricks]

There's so much that's just plain wrong with this statement that I don't even know where to begin.

I agree. I know plenty of people that hunting and growing their own veggies is the only way to keep from going hungry because they CANNOT afford to go to the grocery store.

If people think that kind of poverty doesent exist anymore they are just kidding themselves.

I also know atleast one person who lives this way because they won't under any cirumstances buy food from a grocery store because of chemicals ect. They would rather know where their meat and produce is coming from.

 

[sillysally]

No one needs to hunt for food. We have grocery stores.

Actually, if the average person wants to eat meat from animals not pumped full of crap and eating the food they were meant to eat, they do need to hunt. Such meat is rather expensive otherwise.

 

[Romy]

Actually, if the average person wants to eat meat from animals not pumped full of crap and eating the food they were meant to eat, they do need to hunt. Such meat is rather expensive otherwise.

Or raise their own. Rabbits are extremely economical and fit in tight spaces.

 

[corgipower]

No one needs to hunt for food. We have grocery stores.

Fine then...

There are some who need to hunt.

But there are many who do hunt who do not need to. Many who hunt who do in fact buy plenty of their meat from the grocery store.

sheesh...surely y'all could have figured out what I meant

 

[ACooper]

sheesh...surely y'all could have figured out what I meant

*raises hand* I knew exactly what you meant! hunting doesn't = survival for most people anymore, they can buy from the store and not starve

side note:
Waste bothers me. Whenever I think of hunting for sport and not eating what you kill, I think of that scene in Dances with Wolves of the hundreds of dead buffalo skinned and rotting, wasted. I know the purpose was their skin for money, but what a waste.........I think that scene was the saddest in the whole movie for me because it was a common practice at one time Same with elephants and their tusks. Sickening to me.

 

[Jules]

*raises hand* I knew exactly what you meant! hunting doesn't = survival for most people anymore, they can buy from the store and not starve

side note:
Waste bothers me. Whenever I think of hunting for sport and not eating what you kill, I think of that scene in Dances with Wolves of the hundreds of dead buffalo skinned and rotting, wasted. I know the purpose was their skin for money, but what a waste.........I think that scene was the saddest in the whole movie for me because it was a common practice at one time Same with elephants and their tusks. Sickening to me.

I have to comment on your side note, because waste bothers me, too. I do not have a problem with people hunting, even if they have the "sport" mindset, as long as they use and eat what they hunt. I love the show with Andrew Zimmerman, because it goes far beyond him just eating gross looking bugs and beetles, it shows us how other cultures value their food and that they use and eat everything they can when they slaughter an animal.

I don't know, I really think that we have lost touch with our planet, we take everything for granted, we do not worry where we get our things from and we do not worry about where they go. I try my hardest, as it fits into our budget, to buy locally. We get most of our eggs, fruits, and veggies as they are in season from a local farmer, we buy milk from the Shatto farm (the milk comes in glass bottles that require a $2 "deposit" when you buy the milk, so you bring it back to the store instead of throwing it out. I LOVE that concept.), and when we can, we buy local beef and poultry. And I just wish more people would think like that and respect animals and nature (and no, that has nothing to do with animal rights!).

I get that things were different in the old days and I get that in some sort of way, for whatever motivation, these dogmen did love and care for their dogs. I could never even think about sending my dog in the pit to fight a dog and therefore, I am grateful that it is illegal. I just do not get that warm, fuzzy feeling thinking about the old days in that aspect, and that is what I am questioning. If and older person here would post about how great it was when the family had slaves, because she didn't have to cook and clean, I doubt people would just shrug and say, well, it is what it is. All I wish is that this gap, between "gamedog" people and respectful "watered down, rescue" people would close some more against the ones that rescued a bully and now drag it from dog park to dog park to show the world that it's not that evil. I should be able to say that I can respect and acknowledge the history, but I am glad that it is history without being told that I am falling for HSUS and Co. propaganda. And that is all I have to say to this topic.

 

[corgipower]

*raises hand* I knew exactly what you meant!

Hands Coop a cookie.

 

[Dizzy]

Someone told me you can buy scrambled egg mix in a carton in the US???

Is this true????

And if it is OMG WHY?

 

[xpaeanx]

Someone told me you can buy scrambled egg mix in a carton in the US???

Is this true????

And if it is OMG WHY?

Egg Beaters: An Easy Way to Get More Protein Without Yolks or Cholesterol

 

[Dizzy]

Egg Beaters: An Easy Way to Get More Protein Without Yolks or Cholesterol

Wonders never cease....

 

[Miakoda]

This is another we have to agree to disagree.
What, in your opinion, was dog fighting for? If people bred for gameness there must be a level of harm that the dog must go through to prove itself. The matches where dogs have broken their legs and continue fighting is remembered because of a dog overcoming his pain and discomfort.

Gameness doesn't stem from harming an animal. If that were the case, these dogmen would've just stabbed their dogs repeatedly and just watched to see how many stabbings it took until the dog just refused to get back up (or whatever). That sure would've saved them all the time and hassle of putting dogs into 8-12 week long keeps (workout/conditioning regimens) and worrying all about their nutrition and making sure they get the dog in the very most tip-top shape at just the right time in order to put the best dog into the match. Who woulda thought that all that hard work and effort was needless because all they had to do was harm the dog themselves?