HuntingNet.com Forums - View Single Post - Help me understand.
View Single Post
Old 12-14-2005, 06:07 AM
  #9  
porknbeans
 
Join Date: Sep 2005
Location: Wisconsin
Posts: 172
Default RE: Help me understand.

I hunt birds with my dog so I guess I can talk to that. Watching the dog get excited, learn how to trust its nose, point or flush a bird from a spot you wouldn't think one would be, fetch a downed bird and retrieve it to hand. It is all very orchestrated in a freelance kind of way. You have expectations for your dog to do certain things and you work very hard with your dog to have them happen. The difficulty is that there are no two conditions alike. I really enjoy and appreciate watching my dog and bringing home a bird or two is an added bonus. It also helps the dog in that all it wants to do is make you happy. The bond is reinforced when you congratulate it or give it a hearty scratch.

Using dogs to hunt larger game is a quandry for me since the dogs seem to have a job to do, but it is on the edge of reckless and usually out of eyesight. Running the dogs to near death and hounding (no pun intended) your quarry to the same doesn't sound real sporting. I'm obviously missing something and would also like to hear what.


porknbeans is offline