Sensible Rules Would Protect People, Property, and Animals

The Walker Hound is now named "Numbers," a sardonic reference to the callous way he was identified in his early years. He is the beloved pet of a minister who adopted him from the Richmond SPCA. When Numbers first arrived at our humane center, he was emaciated and suffering from worms and other ailments indicative of lack of veterinary care and poor diet.

The numbers bleached into his side would have identified him to the hunter who owned him, had that hunter wanted him any more. But the hunter no longer found Numbers useful and so abandoned him in the woods where he was later found.

That was Numbers' lucky day, but it does not work out that way for thousands of others. They die slow deaths of injuries or starvation, or they are hit by cars or shot by the very hunters to whom they have devoted their brief lives.

About one-fourth of the dogs the Richmond SPCA receives are hounds. This amounts to nearly 400 dogs every year. Half of them have heart worms when they arrive, necessitating an expensive and lengthy period of treatment.

While generally gentle and affectionate, these hounds have never lived as pets in homes and so require substantial training to acquire the behaviors that will ensure a lasting adoption. For these reasons, hounds are the category of pet with the longest and most expensive length of stay at our humane center.

Hunters who use hounds to hunt bear, deer, rabbits, raccoons, and foxes routinely deny that any of them mistreat their hounds -- or abandon dogs in the woods once the dogs are no longer young or healthy enough to hunt. Without question, some hunters take good care of their hounds and treat them with compassion, but it is disingenuous to suggest that this is true of all hunters or that regulation is not needed.

The Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries recently released a study done in response to an enormous number of complaints about the abuses of landowner property rights -- and of hounds -- by hound hunters. The study committee was primarily composed of the hunters themselves and so, not surprisingly, their report recommends no regulations to ensure the welfare of the hounds.

In fact, no one in animal welfare was even permitted to participate on this state-sponsored committee, so there was no voice for the dogs or for the humane organizations like mine that spend many thousands of dollars annually caring for the dogs that hound hunters abuse and abandon.

Even so, their own report indicates that the majority of their public survey respondents -- other than the hound hunters -- expressed great concern about the poor health and living conditions of the hounds. In fact, the large majority of the non-hound-hunting respondents, even those who hunt but without hounds, said they have actually found abandoned hounds on their property and that the hounds they encountered were in poor condition.

As the late New York Sen. Pat Moynihan said, everyone is entitled to his own opinions but not to his own facts. Far too many people -- such as the residents of rural areas who find the hounds and the workers in animal shelters who receive them -- are well aware that poor care and abandonment of hounds are widespread realities, which undermine the hunters' claims that hounds are not mistreated.

Legal requirements to ensure that the dogs are afforded decent living conditions and veterinary care -- and to provide a means for humane organizations to identify the owners of hounds they receive -- should not offend any hunter who is already acting responsibly. Annual, unannounced state inspections of hunt club kennels, just like those performed on animal pounds and shelters in Virginia, would help to ensure that the hounds are being kept in humane conditions.

The standard response of hunters to any suggestion of regulation is to argue that animal welfare advocates are trying to end their great hunting tradition. This is far from the truth. For most of us concerned for the welfare of the hounds, the abolishment of hunting is not our goal. Our point is simply this: People are welcome to hunt within the regulations, but they are not welcome to abuse the dogs that they use to do the hard work for them.

As long as responsible hound hunters continue to align themselves with the most unethical of their group, they will continue to alienate the rest of the public. Most non-hunters, who compose the vast majority of our population, will tolerate hunting so long as property rights and safety concerns are respected and animals are treated compassionately.

The well-worn "tradition" argument is meaningless to anyone other than the hound hunters themselves and misses the point entirely. Surely, they are not suggesting that poor treatment of the hounds is part of the tradition they revere.

If not, then the tradition is not disrupted by regulations ensuring humane care. If so, then they miss a much bigger point, which is the history of our country. Our greatest national tradition is being willing to take a hard look at conduct that causes suffering to the innocent and having the courage to end it. Forces for positive change that make this country a kinder and more ethical place have invariably prevailed in the end.

Robin Starr is the chief executive of the Richmond SPCA. Contact her at ceo@richmondspca.org.