I was going to keep quiet about this, but, I have heard enough.............


I think what is being said and the intent being made is the action against repeat offenders, for lack of a better term.

I had this situation come up just a few weeks ago before rifle season, while I was bowhunting in the stand. I had a pair of rat terriors, one male, one female, come by my stand, obviously they had been abandoned by the road by the looks of them. They had mange (sp?) really bad, but for the most part, were just trying to get by with what they had. They were not chasing deer or any other animals, just scrounging for something to eat. They had even walked up to the truck while my father and I were eating lunch one day. I let them pass with a smile and no worries, and have seen them several times since.

A week later, I had three larger dogs, that I have heard from the neighbors had been running deer, come by my stand. They all were half breeds and no collars. I had heard them barking from a distance, but they just appeared out of the timber in front of me with no sound. The stoutest dog, but not the largest, picked up on my drag-line trail of scent that I had left. Instantly he started growling and drooling at the mouth, followed the trail in front of my stand, and caught sight of me. The hair raised up on its back, and it started to chomp its jaws and slowly walk toward me. I was in my stand, out of danger, but got to thinking. Just a few days before that, my wife had been hunting with me, sitting in a camo chair directly beneath my stand as she sometimes does. What kind of danger would she have been in? This upset me enough to set an arrow flying at the dog infront of me. If I wasn't such a poor shot with a bow that day, I would NOT have felt at all bad about skewering his butt! The other two dogs ran off at the sight of me drawing my bow, and the third followed after I had planted one right between its front legs.

Later that week......I saw all three dogs laying in front of a farm house 2 miles away, none with collars or leashes.

Did that make me feel macho?? I wasn't doing it to feel macho. I even may have saved some young kid from a frightening experience in the timber, who knows?? Was it the dogs fault?? You bet it is! Along with the owners lack of responsibility! These dogs had run into other folks in the woods before, by the way the other two dogs took off from the sight of me in the stand. It will be the final lesson learned if they show up again. I have killed dogs that were running livestock of mine (exotics--Texas dall sheep, Mouflans, ect.) into, and through barb wire fences, after repeated attempts to have the owners keep tabs on them. After about the 3rd ram that has to be put down due to dogs running them through a fence and injuring them, you get short tempered about the situation.

I love dogs just as much or more than the next guy, and have two of them myself. But, like what was said earlier, they are mindful, taken care off, and have never been neglected to where they run off OR had the chance to run off. I have spent at least 8 to 10 thousand on one dog alone in the past 10 years, just to keep it alive from the condition in which my wife had found it. Burned, two broken legs, infection in the ears that cannot be removed, even after splitting the ears open and scraping them out like peeling a banana, infections in the eye common to the dogs breed, and by the way, the loss of one eye due to a veterinarians' mis-diagnosis and "ho hum" attitude towards the situation. It took a specialist in Kansas City to save the other eye.

Now, that being said..........

I, in no way, are intending to make it sound like all vets are like the one we had delt with.

But, on the same note, not all hunters shoot dogs to feel macho either. It should depend on the situation, like it has for me, and anyone else. You, as a vet, should realize this.

"Poor little Johnny's" dog would be alive today if the parents had taken the incentive to have Johnny take care of his dog.

The intended shooting of a dog is just the end result, not the cause........