Alsatian

I don't know what to tell you. If I had good reason to believe that dogs were roaming my hunting ground for the purpose of running my deer off, I would be mighty tempted to shoot them.

On the other hand. This past deer season, one morning I was hiding out watching what I hoped was a likely spot for Bambi to amble to his daily bed when a rag-tag troup of dogs came trotting right across the field in front of me, diagonally across my line-of-fire. It was funny, about three dogs came across never seeing or winding me, and the last dog, a meaty black lab saw me and immediately turned and ran at a full run. He had had some experiences with other men I reckon! Anyway, the other dogs, seeing his reaction, high tailed it too. I picked up and moved, assuming Bambi wasn't going to grace me with his presence there that morning. I mentioned this to my hunting ground host, and he unambiguously told me to shoot those dogs. No hesitation, no contingencies, terminate with extreme prejudice. I was not happy about those dogs being there, and this seemed a pretty attractive prospect.

A couple days later, the same troop of dogs wandered across my field-of-fire. I thought about shooting, but the idea that I might be killing some little kid's favorite dog kept me from doing it. Even without this thought, I'm not sure I would do it. I like dogs and have two in my home. So . . . however attractive the thought is in the abstract, I found executing the deed, even with permission from the guy who had leased the land for raising cattle, was beyond my capacity.

Still, if I knew someone was running my deer off, I might respond differently. In the case I describe above, I'm pretty sure these dogs were just local dogs whose owners let them run free.