"coyote Hunting"

[cinnamonster]

Hi all! So, I live out in the country, and a lot of times we'll get people around our home who hunt coyotes for sport. They use specially trained dogs to do so, and they even have cages built into the beds of their trucks for them called "dog boxes". They're much too small for the animals and clearly uncomfortable, but that's beside the point. The methods they use to train and use the dogs are much worse than the boxes. Anyway, I was driving home tonight, around 9 o'clock, and it was very dark. I saw a dog in the road, and pulled to a stop. I got out of my truck and went over to investigate. The dog was a pretty little Fox Hound momma dog, with two collars on. One had an engraved name plate, and one was a shock collar, with a box on it bigger than my hand and a long piece of cable sticking straight up in the air. Thinking the dog had gotten loose from her line, I picked her up and put her in the back of my truck. (She was super friendly!) I planned to take her home and call the number on her collar. After I'd driven a couple of miles, though, I came across a truck parked in the middle of the road. I pulled up next to it and asked the man inside if he'd lost a dog. He told me that no, he had not "lost" a dog, but he did have a dog tracking a coyote right now. I told him that the dog was in the back of my truck, and had been wandering around in the middle of the road. So the man went around the back of my truck and grabbed the dog, slammed my tailgate and thanked me for my help. I guess I just wanted to share my little story, and ask if you all have the same problem where you're from. Do people coyote hunt anywhere near you? If so, do they use the same archaic measures that the group by my house uses? I am 100% opposed to it. The voltage on the collar of the dog I picked up tonight was much stronger than is safe for an animal of that size. It's not that shock collars are ever okay, but that's just downright dangerous. In case you weren't aware, the dogs are also trained to fight the coyotes. They are to run down and wound the coyote so the hunter can shoot it. Okay, let the discussion begin. What do you know, what do you think? I'm eager to hear it!

 

[Ripleygirl]

I know nothing about Coyote hunting being in Wales, GB. But I too am 100% against shock collars and am appalled by what you have said there. Awful people! Poor dog. I don't understand how people can still think that you need to use such methods on dogs when positive training methods are being proved to work more and more... Makes me very angry...

 

[running_dog]

I think that the closest we would have to your coyote hunting in the UK would be hunting with lurchers and sighthounds. There is plenty of cruelty by some working sighthound owners (though many of them are great owners and the dogs have wonderful lives doing what they are beautifully designed to do!!!) but I don't get the impression that shock collars are the norm. It may be because the hunters tend to stay closer to the dogs. I suspect that another reason is that many lurchers/sighthounds will continue pursuit even with fearsome injuries rather than lose their rabbit so if a shock is going to be big enough to make these dogs stop it has the potential to frighten them so much they will never hunt again.

There was a man with working lurchers on here at one point and he had 100% recall with his dogs without ever resorting to anything like a shock collar, if I recollect correctly he used a long line to enforce recall during training. His dogs took deer, fox, hares (all of these pre the UK hunting with dogs ban I am sure ) and rabbits without human assistance, if the animal was small enough the dog brought it live to hand. This man could recall his dogs mid chase and if after thorough training (he entered his dogs at about 8 months old) he couldn't recall them he re-homed them.

This is a video of the sort of hunting with dogs I am talking about though lamping is only one form:

I'm pleased to say that Wales has already banned shock collars and hopefully the rest of the UK soon will also, I know there are so called "training" centres near where I live that still use them . There is never any excuse for using a shock collar and I would struggle to make myself return a dog to anyone who I knew used one.

 

[southerngirl]

We have Coyotes here, but I've never heard of hunting them.
Makes me sad to hear and see when people are mistreating dogs. And I hate it when people just treat there dogs like they are a tool, a weapons, property instead of a valued friend, family member. Dogs give so much to them, we should treat them with respect.

 

[Ripleygirl]

And I hate it when people just treat there dogs like they are a tool, a weapons, property instead of a valued friend, family member. Dogs give so much to them, we should treat them with respect.

Well said, Danielle!!