We have benefited, as a species, from the conveniences of grocery stores, modern medicine, and technology, among many other things. As a result we have become softer and less tolerant of ideas and activities that used to be considered necessary and normal. People are having a hard enough time stomaching the idea of raising animals for meat, nevermind hunting them and killing them. Now add in an extra layer by using hounds to locate and chase a deer and you have successfully alienated yourself from most of civilized society.
You will be judged as a cheater, a simpleton, and a crude dip-spitting, beer-guzzling neanderthal hell bent on killing everything and forcing your dogs to do hard labor. You will be accused of running a deer until it’s tongue is hanging out and it can’t manage to take another step after being totally exhausted from the chase.
The more gentle hunters will accuse you of messing up the land and running off all the deer. They’ll pass judgement from their 18 foot tall tower stand that overlooks a food plot and a corn pile that is under the watchful eye of a trail camera linked to their smart phone. They sit on their high horse wearing $600 worth of camo, face paint, scent elimination products while carrying a range finder and a tricked out bow or rifle.
There isn’t anything wrong with using or wearing all of the latest and greatest. At least until you decide to sneer at the simple dog hunter. I’ll attempt to make my case.
The hounds announce their presence, alerting all of the critters that they are on the ground and looking for a chase. They aren’t perched high in a tree just waiting. The handlers have spent years raising dogs from puppies and getting to know each of their nuances, tells, and faults. They can tell by the pitch and timbre of the pack whether they are trailing or if the deer is on it’s feet and running. The hunters hunt as a tribe. They will move around the woods and each other in a chaotic but well orchestrated manner.
And after the race has ended, more often than not there will be no deer to show for it. We know that we’ll get outsmarted more often than not. Sometimes we decide to let a doe or a small buck live for the benefit of the herd. Sometimes we just miss. Either way, the odds still favor the deer by a considerable margin.
At the end of the day, the tribe comes together again. The kids play in the woods, the old men tell the stories we’ve all heard a dozen times, and the young men handle the work of cleaning the deer, if there are any to clean. The tribe divides the meat amongst the hunters. It’s so much closer to what our distant ancestors were doing to survive. The hunting party would go out and hunt as a group, possible with the aid of dogs, and the spoils were brought to the village for the tribe to share.
While I will agree that hunting from a stand is far more efficient than hunting with hounds, that doesn’t mean I’m willing to concede the moral high ground. Man and dog have been bonded together for thousands of years. We hunt and fight side by side. The dog wants nothing more than to do as it’s master wishes. The human, if he’s worthy of the dog, only wants to provide as many opportunities as possible for the dog to do what it loves the most.
The bond forged between human and dog, and between the members of the hunting party are as rewarding as any kill. A trophy with no one to share it with doesn’t quite feel as one earned with your people there to witness it. Few will want to hear the story of how you waited hours and hours in a tree for a buck to slip by, but the story of the chase will be told to the next crop of hunters as they continue the tradition.
It’s becoming less popular and harder to do. Land is getting smaller and harder to find, laws are changing, and people want to get the “ugly” as far away from them as they. But, a few will persist as long as we can and have the audacity to raise hounds and be called Dog Men.