Joey, we do need to worry about how we look to the general public because the general public is who gets to vote on these measures when they come up. Look at the poor fellas in California who are about to be outlawed from hunting bear and big cats with hounds. The whole argument against that was that it was cruel to the wildlife and cruel to the dogs to "make" them hunt. There is a huge difference in using a hound to track and run an animal up into a tree, and using a dog to actually grab hold of another animal with it's teeth. That is where the public's perception of us can really hurt if we have not been on our toes in keeping ourselves regarded as empathetic houndsmen with a respect for our animals as well as the game we pursue. If we look like goofballs to the general public, they won't lose too much sleep about branding us unfeeling idiots and removing our rights and privileges to hunt with our dogs.
Honestly, as chic as it is to "rescue" animals from perceived "abuses" which typically start with whether you believe it is cruel to keep a dog outdoors with no air conditioning, I am surprised we still can hunt with dogs anymore at all. Heck, here in Texas, I am pretty certain that as of September 1 of this year it is illegal to house a dog outdoors at temps above 90 degrees. That is the type of idiocy we are up against.
Cheers
M
rules such as th 90 degree rule you are talking about is really not idiocy...it is brilliance on the activists part...small rules like this will slowly erode away our way of life because that brick wall will come down one brick at a time...one rule (brick) here and one there and eventually we will loose our right to own out door dogs and that will end all hunting with dogs...
They have been trying to out law hunting with dogs since way back and they got there way years ago in California...right now it would be very hard to do away with hog dogs because PETA knows that they have too much opposition on this one...they have already talked about sterilizing hogs...to me this move was brought on by the anti's to stop hog dogging...before then they tried to say that dogs were genetically engineered and by going forward with that one they were hoping to do away with dog breeds...those folks are insane and do not make any sense whatsoever...
