mark wrote:A little common sense sure goes a long ways in life,especially in dog hunting. But if you are going to keep your dog/dogs safe from every adverse condition you can think of you better leave the pickup at home because i am positive they have killed or ended a dogs hunting ability thousands of times over what any ice or river ever has.
merlo_105 wrote:David, All I'm saying is having a careless attitude does the sport of Hound hunting no Justice. Just cause you haven't or Didn't lose a Dog to a Wolf or a River don't mean the guy behind you wont or hasn't. If a dog misses two tracks a year cause of a unsafe situation then so be it, Ain't going to hurt that dog one bit. It's at the dog owner's discretion no one else's and one shouldn't be judged on how he hunts his dog's. If the guy who started this topic feel's he made the right choice then good if he want's to go back and turn loose then good. There is no wrong or right.
I think there is an interesting dynamic going on here which relates to context. In other words, where you live, what you see and do every day, what kind of environment you grew up in, what your experiences are, what you are familiar with and know very well, what you are unfamiliar with and base your thoughts and attitudes on what you have heard. You drive a truck every day so you don't think about the fact that most dogs that are hurt or killed are hurt or killed by pickup trucks.
I just got off the phone with an northern cat hunter who absolutely will not hunt when and where there may be snakes, and/or gators. You might hear about concern for his dogs, but really it is just fear of the unknown and being unfamiliar with the situation, and not having grown up dealing with snakes all the time. Yet I have been with this man wishing i was not in his truck when he was taking risks on ice that I would not dream of taking. He is a northern man, he is extremely familiar with ice. Knows nothing of snakes.
I have talked to southern men who have no desire whatsoever to face the dangers and challenges of the north and would not turn loose there if I paid every expense to make it possible for them. Yet, any day they hunt, they and their dogs are in danger of snake bite. And every year dogs are killed by gators.
The areas I used to hunt in MN were filthy with wolves, and ice is everywhere. Ice is always dangerous because you can just never know what nature is doing under that ice. There are a half dozen phenomenon that can produce thin ice in the middle of thick ice. And there is no way a woodsman can know it. I met a super great man in Walker MN, a 60 year old man who lived on the ice every winter and was an expert fisherman and guide. A couple days later, I found out he had gone through the ice and died.
Merlo said "If a dog misses two tracks a year cause of a unsafe situation then so be it, Ain't going to hurt that dog one bit And he is right. What you don't seem to grasp though Merlo, or maybe dont want to grasp, is this: if I was not willing to turn loose among wolves, then I could not hunt bobcat in MN. If I was not willing to expose myself and my dogs to the calculated risk of ice, then I could not hunt bobcat in MN. It is not a matter of missing two tracks a year for me, or for the man who started this thread.
Miners who mine in underground tunnels do not dwell on the fact that miners will die underground this year. Every day they just grab their lunch and head down to the man-killing underground. Just like you climb in your man-killing vehicle and drive to work. But the idea of going underground or cave exploration sounds like a really bad idea to me. Some people do it for recreation. It is the stuff of nightmares for me and definitely "not worth the risk". Or to quote a different context "not worth losing a dog". Even though it would not be losing a dog. But it is much easier to blame the dog for my insecurities regarding the obvious dangers of crawling around underground.
You load your dogs, every time you hunt, into the greatest killer/maim-er of hunting dogs ever devised by man or nature. And you don't even consider the danger. It is part of your life. You know the risks, yet you don't think about them or let them stop you. You just go hunting in your dog killer, because you sure aint walkin' to your hunting spots, nor walking to find your tracks. If you really wanted to protect your dogs from the greatest dog killer, though, you would walk, and avoid all roads on that walk. To qoute Merlo: "Just cause you haven't or Didn't lose a Dog to a [PICKUP TRUCK] Wolf or a River don't mean the guy behind you wont or hasn't" (bracketed words added)
It is a matter of perspective and context; familiarity and life experience; convenience and necessity. And what is necessary for you might not be for some one in another area or another time in history, so that person might not see the point of the risks you take every time you hunt, while you do not even see them as risks, but as hunting.
