Thursday, December 25, 2008
Death of hunting dog is difficult for young owner to understand
Bill Cochran
Recent columns
When one of his deer hunting dogs didn’t show up following a Saturday afternoon hunt in Southampton County, 13-year-old Tyler Nelms got worried.
If you’ve had a hunting dog come up missing, you know the sinking feeling in the pit of your stomach. Is the dog lost? Has it been hit be a car? Has it been stolen? Was its tracking collar taken? Maybe somebody shot it.
Tyler’s dogs are more than just hunting instruments. They are his pets. Never mind his young age. He is something of a veteran dog handler, having raised hunting dogs for seven years, according to his dad, Billy Nelms.
“I taught him at a very early age the responsibilities of caring for his dog,” said Billy. “He does the feeding, watering and most of the cleaning of pens and water bowls, and I provide the vaccinations, wormers and the feed. He has raised 14 puppies over the years and is in the process of raising six more.”
On the recent Saturday, Tyler had collared and loaded eight dogs for a hunt, including one named Ranger. At dark, Ranger was no where to be seen. Tyler and his dad searched for the dog most of the night, then went to bed in a fit of worry, and started the search afresh the next morning. It ended badly.
Tyler walked into the edge of some woods and there was Ranger, covered with blood, apparently killed when a shot from a slug gun ripped into its body.
That night, a sad Tyler asked his dad why anyone would do such a pathetic thing.
“I couldn’t explain it to him,” Billy said.
Neither can anyone else.
The unfortunate incident has received widespread publicity in an area of the state where hunting deer with dogs is a tradition that dates back to George Washington.
In a letter to the editor published in a couple of newspapers in the area, Billy has challenged the shooter. He wrote:
“If you are a real man, find us. I would like to introduce you to the person you hurt the most, my son, and have you answer the question I was unable to answer.”
Earlier in the season, Billy lost one of his hunting dogs, which he thought had been hit by a car. But now he wonders if it, too, had been shot.
The loss of hunting dogs isn’t anything new. Billy doesn’t think it is more prevalent now than in the past, but he believes it is a more sensitive issue following a recent controversial study of hound hunting by the Department of Game and Inland Fisheries.
The study has underscored friction between hound hunters and still hunters; between hound hunters and landowners; between hounds hunters and animal-right’s activates.
Even so, Billy believes the study also has given dog owners the opportunity to prove that they are honorable sportsmen.
“I think we are trying to show that we don’t abuse or neglect these animals,” he said. “We spend the time caring for these animals about 45 weeks a year to hunt them for a mere seven weeks. We purchase tracking systems for thousands of dollars so we can retrieve them and put them away safely at the end of the day.”
Billy said hunters also are coming to know the plight of landowners who are abused by uncaring dog owners. He pointed to one landowner who had given a couple people permission to hunt and they brought a couple other people and those people brought still more people.
“Now the landowner doesn’t know who is coming or going,” Billy said.
It wasn’t a landowner who killed Ranger, says Billy. It wasn’t even a hunter. It was a killer.
“How could you take the life of a harmless pet that was doing what he loved to do, just hunt? No matter how hard I try, I can’t explain to Tyler how or why.”
So far, no one has stepped up to take the blame.
