ya"ll know some of the best plans can an will go wrong....very wrong..........
my turkey season came and went....went to the dogs that is....
I had my blind set up for a few days....on this farm with the hope of busting a gobbler this fall........ but after the first day of setting in this blind...in the cold for six hours and not see ant birds at all...i did a little scouting around the woodline at the end of the first day and found somekind of dogs tracks...coyotes maybe....
the next day i was in the blind by six am. and sure to my luck i found two big dogs sniffing the ground around my hunting area.......with high hopes they would leave at anytime....no way .......as i set in horror as these two made a bee-line right for my blind with wagging tails.........i could see they had on collars....but who's they were.......i had no idea.......now here i am try to turkey hunt with these two dadgum dogs at my hunting blind with tails ah thumping againts my blind... thump.... thump..... thump..........after trying to dig under my blind and sticking their mussles in i just could not take it any more.....not wanting to hurt ones pets.......i just gave up... an let them have the field........an i'll be dang if they didn't follow me at a distance.........back to the farm house.....they were not his and he had never seen them before....the next morning i found they had spent the nigh in my blind........after calling the animal people........it would be 'bout two days before they could come out.........they never did because the last day of the season.....i saw those two dogs with wagging tails outside my blind........hope they will be gone by spring season...........Ron

Well...........hate to hear that, Ron......stray dogs will definately mess up a
good hunting situation......bet they marked your turkey blind real good,
inside and out.....claimed it their home away from home......probably got
turkey scattered all over them hills & holler's......maybe this spring, you'll
get a good'n..............................................................................................BH51.....

As a life-long owner of dogs, I appreciate your unwillingness to shoot somebody's pet Ron. However... dogs on the loose are 'bad news' for many reasons. When I lived in Missouri, ferel dogs were such a bad problem, that state agents encouraged people to shoot any dog they saw if it couldn't be attached to human nearby. I shot several from my deer stands, but I never shot one with collar. Sometimes dogs just get loose.
 
Doesn't sound like the dogs you saw were 'missed' though. I think I would capture them and take them to the 'pound' and let the state or county figure it out. At any rate, I'd get 'em off my hunting grounds come **** or high water.
 
Paul

You did all you could do.

Kinda hard to shoot a waggy tail critter that might be someone's pet.

Ron,
I think everyone at my camp last year had dogs chase deer past their stands. It is extremely frustrating to say the least. My first reaction was to tell my boys to shoot any dog they saw running deer, then it changed to just shoot the deer that they were running which isn't exactly legal either I don't think, even though we weren't running dogs. Now it's just let them go, shoot the coyotes and foxes. I hope we don't have the same problems this year.
 
I would be cussing mad if someone shot my dog, and have had a dog shot with birdshot when I was a kid who survived and suffered greatly with it.  I also would never let my dog run wild when there are more hunting camps than houses in the area.  On the other hand, I don't figure another man's dog is worth the money I spend to hunt there, and those dogs may have some serious effects on the hunting there.

It's a tough issue.
 
"Bothering" hunters isn't the only, or even the worst problem. The truth is, feral dogs have a very deleterious effect on local game AND non-game populations. Since dogs are actually "wolves" in Gucci clothing, they inherently tend to gather into packs. In Missouri, there were several feral dog packs running in and around the counties I hunted. Being former pets, they were not afraid of humans, and there were reported a few attacks by these packs on children.
 
It is amazing how the demeanor of a dog changes from when it is alone to when it is in a pack. Even a "pack" of only two greatly increases a dog's 'bravado'. Just about every year there is a mauling (usually causing death) of at least one child in a Bush village where somebody's dog team got loose. It is very common up here. One dog loose runs scared, very difficult to catch. A "team" gets loose, NO FEAR. They wander the streets of the village like a pack of juvenile delinquents.
 
Where I live now, if I know the dog, I catch them and return them to their owners. If I don't know them, I try to catch them and turn them into the Burough animal control. If they can't be caught, and I see them around my property 'chronically', they get shot.
 
It's been a very, very long time since I shot a dog. In fact, trying to remember when, I recall it was just over 14 years ago. My daughters were 2 and 4. A fellow moved in not too far from me with pit bulls. The first time his dogs were loose, I chased them home and told him that the next time I saw them on my property, regardless of the fact that I knew they had an owner, I was going to 'shoot on sight'. Of course he tried to tell me that they were "harmless". (There are only two "harmless" dogs - a chihuahua, and a dead one.) Wasn't a week later, one was in my back yard not 20 paces form my door. I recall my .30 M1 carbine was the closest arm I had at hand. I didn't try to hide the deed. I called him and told him I had shot his dog and had called Animal Control to retrieve the carcass. He moved away before his other dogs got into trouble.
 
I'm not just talking to hear myself talk here. I have a point, and it is this:
 
Loose dogs are dangerous. They're dangerous to local game, their dangerous to themselves, and they can be dangerous to people.
 
Loose dogs are somebody's property. Most loose dogs are loose because they 'got away' from a responsible owner. Shooting them would be wrong. However...
 
Catching them and turning them over to the the 'animal cops' is NOT wrong. In fact, it is the best thing one can do in my opinon. Responsible owners get their property back; irresponsible owners get "notice", and those dogs whose owners don't care about them get put down.
 
It's about being neighborly and a good neighbor - it's about being responsible - it's about safety - it's about wildlife management...
 
It's a tough issue.
 
Paul

Quote from: gitano;87762It is amazing how the demeanor of a dog changes from when it is alone to when it is in a pack. Even a "pack" of only two greatly increases a dog's 'bravado'. .... One dog loose runs scared, very difficult to catch. A "team" gets loose, NO FEAR. They wander the streets of the village like a pack of juvenile delinquents....
Paul

 
Amazing how similiar canines and humans are.  
 
I have the same policy on pit bulls, shoot on site, there are just too many instances of them mauling people.  I have een chased by dogs lots of times, mostly as a kid, but the only time I even had an ounce of concern was as an adult a couple years ago.  Their was a pack of dogs running together on post as I was out for a run, alone and in the middle of no where.  Of course I can't carry on a federal installation, so I grabbed the first stick I could find and they found something better to do, but they definitely had ill intentions as evidenced by the growling and barking.  They were five or six if I remember right and they were all medium to large sized muts, enough that I'm not sure what the outcome would have been if they had decided to attack.

I have to be honest, I might not as been forgiving as Ron was, especially if they were wild. reading what some of had to say, I believe I would act differnetly now. I have read some good points. My neighbors dogs are always on the chopping block, so to speak. I pulled into his yard one day to look at a deer and got bit getting out of the truck. I did not say much since I was on his land, but they wander over here every now and then. He really does his best to keep them over there and they are usually over here really late at night so no harm done. But if I ever seen them eyeing one of my boys, I will deal with it accordingly, especially if they are on my property. luckily, we don't have a problem with feral dogs. I am glad after reading some of these posts.
I hope it turns out better for ya next year Ron and way to hold off on those dogs! God Bless.

I went by there monday to pick up my blind........and saw that the turkeys were back in the area....... i'm leaving it in the same spot for this coming spring season.....the dogs had gotten out while under someone else's care.... in kentucky we have a new law this year ("Romeo's Law" house bill #145).... and i just don't need that kind of heat.......... Ron

well I had one of our visitors run by my blind last weekend, saw another running down the road inside the camp and a third was seen by my son.