Feral Cats & Dogs!!!

[3 stinky dogs]

I have had similar problems with my neighbor. In my case the problem was mostly skunks eating feed left out for stray cats. I resorted to poison and got most of the skunks. My neighbors and I also sent several complaints to Houston animal control and the problem has been resolved. Still we are lucky to see a pidgin or even a crackle due to all the cats that Lady kept around.

 

[asabai]

I have never had any experience with stray dogs and after reading your post I don't want to. I suppose that you could call the local warden or Humane Society, but if you live in the country your often left out in the cold. Good luck to you.

Rusty

 

[brubincam]

are you allowed to shoot a dog or dogs if someone sicks them on you???

 

[3 stinky dogs]

The cops do. It seems like the same rules that govern shooting some one would cover that. Good question.

 

[Rebel]

If someones dog attacks me i ain't going to worry about the legalities until later, i am going to shoot the dog if i have a gun on me at the time, which i usually do if i leave the house.

 

[asabai]

I would never shoot an big eyed sweet doggie, I would let him nibble on my leg untill his tummy was full. :haha:

I figure you could use any means needed to stop a dog or cat(they are meaner) short of hitting the dog with your wife. :nono:

Rusty

 

[paulvallandigham]

Under the law, if someone sends a dog to attack you, the dog has become a weapon, and the person can be arrested and prosecuted for aggravated assault, or battery, or even attempted murder depending on circumstances and the amount of damage done. You have the right not to be injured or killed. You therefore have the right to defend yourself from an attack by a dog, by killing it.

I am an attorney, and have been teaching self defense law for more than 25 years.

 

[Rocky Johnson]

What about shooting the person who sicked the dog on you? :winking: Rocky

 

[Wehrmacht]

Noah,

When you say..."I'd say the person who foisted that bit of :bull:", well, at first I assumed that you lumped me into that catagory.If you did,please remove me because you're far off base if you do. There is an element of truth to what you say about left leaning tendencies of some if not most universities and colleges.But that's OK since the main objective of these institutions is to make young people think,and if they think usually they'll come around to a common sence viewpoint. The recent "Ivory Bill Woodpecker In Arkansas" is a good example of what you are saying,and a very big and important ( :shake: ) Eastern University involved in this :bull: :bull: privately wishes this would just go away.

But ...to the point we are supposed to be addressing unless I am wrong... Feral cats and dogs do cause damage and from a wildlife managers viewpoint I'm not saying that they don't.But...and it's a BIG but..any damage feral/domestic animals cause HEALTHY individuals is so small that it's not worth worrying about.No feral cat or dog is anywhere near as capable of preying on wildlife species as the native predators are,and under normal conditions with healthy predator/prey species of wildlife even native predators are not a threat to prey species.Rough as hell on "individuals" within the population,but not to the population as a whole :winking: .It's usually when man..you,me,Homo boobiensis..gets involved that things get out of hand.One of the classics studies in wildlife management on this subject is the Kiabab Plateau episode in Arizona between deer and panthers,but that's a different subject.Back to the point....

We're not discussing (or shouldn't be under the subject thread) damage feral dogs do to DOMESTIC livestock.Good Lord! Everyone knows dogs will group up and kill chickens,calves and even cows. Either kill the dogs or get a couple of burros to protect the herd! Feral AND domestic cats Will catch and kill songbirds...ESPECIALLY where bird feeders concentrate the prey!(Homo boobiensis,again).Don't put up feeders especially where cats have cover from which to attack!

Introduction of non-native species of wildlife (including house cats and dogs) to areas where these animals have never a part of the overall scheme of things IS an invitation for disaster.There are too many examples of this being done in Australia,New Zealand,Pacific Islands (including the one off the coast of California) and other areas to say[url] otherwise.Again[/url],Homo boobiensis at work!

Pen raise game birds...quail,pheasant,whatever...and turn them out on a tract of land and see what happens.Want to concentrate native predators AND feral cats? Just try doing this! Almost any species of pen raised wildlife--including trapped and moved wild wildlife--is an invitation for dinner at the Cracker Barrel for everything that makes its living in the woods eating other critters.Down here in the Deep South we pen raise and release quail.Out in the Mid-West it's pheasants. These birds last about as long as I would in Iraq with a sign around my neck saying "Islam is Stupid".Feral house cats surely get their share.But so do mink,weasels,fox,coyote,etc etc.

Wild animals suffer accidents!! Betcha never heard that one before :winking:.But they do.Broken or just strained joints and legs and here comes a predator!A stick in the eye...catarachs (even in young animals,especially coons). A pregnant doe eating 8% protein when she needs 16%.Fawns born deformed,still born,retarded.Everything that happens with us (Homo boobiensis :winking: ) happens to wildlife,and there ain't no walk-in clinic in the woods,much less a Mayo Clinic! Predators including feral/domestic dogs and cats eat these animals,excrete the hair in feces and get the blame for killing[url] them.Include[/url] coyotes in this!

One other comment then I'm off my "soapbox".My wildlife Prof was an old Island-Hopping Jarhead with a battlefield promotion to first lieutenant,about three purple hearts a couple of bronze and silver stars,and more common sense than most people I've ever known.He used to tell us that if we had a question about wildlife management and didn't know the answer,just go down to the local barber shop on Saturday morning and ask.Everyone there would be an expert :hatsoff:

 

[noahmercy]

How do, Der Forster.

After re-reading my post, I see how you might have gotten the idea my comment may have included you. :redface: NOT my intention, I assure you. I was referring to the person who told you that dogs and cats have little impact on wild game populations, in point of fact. I appologize for being ambiguous there.

I'm sure that if we speak in generalities, domestic-turned-feral or stray animals have little impact on overall wild game numbers, but there are mitigating factors and localized exceptions to this. I actually spend a lot of time with Game and Fish guys and gals and State and private wildlife biologists, and from conversations and videos, I can honestly say that under the proper (improper?) circumstances, one stray dog can kill several elk. I watched some film on which four fully grown elk in deep snow were chased and worried by an Australian Shepherd until they were completely exhausted. (They had been chased into the deep stuff by the dog prior to the fella' getting the camera going.) At that point, the elk stopped moving and were unable to get out of the snow. Their carcasses were found after the thaw a couple months later in that same depression.

And when dogs pack up (or mate with coyotes and produce coydogs), the amount of damage they can wreak on healthy big game animals is dramatic and well-documented, at least out here.

I've seen cats eating baby pileated woodpeckers, bald eagles, and great horned owls. (Not big game animals, but species of special concern, to be sure). I saw these predations down in Florida, incidentally.

Now, I know not all strays and feral domestics do these things. I also know that "stuff" happens in the wild and natural predators and weather have far more impact on game animal populations. Heck, cars have far more impact (pardon the pun) than feral critters, with the possible exception of cat/bird interaction. But (and we are obviously in agreement on this) the feral dogs and cats are introduced specie...introduced by homo sloppiens.

Since they do not belong in the wild, they are classified as predatory (as opposed to predators) out here due to their potential and real impact on both game and non-game species, and not subject to the protection afforded most animals who belong there.

Excellent discussion, BTW, and again I appologize if I came off as abrasive in my initial post.

:thumbsup:

 

[Hoyt]

are you allowed to shoot a dog or dogs if someone sicks them on you???

I think now in florida you can shoot whoever sicks them on you.

 

[Walks Alone]

On the ranch I grew up on, any feral dog or cat running or preying on stock or wildlife was a target. I do ADC for a lot of ranchers and that holds for them too.

 

[spitfire]

Many diverse opinions.But can you quess this gentleman's stand? Link-Feral Cat hunting :shake: Isn't baiting Illegal? :nono:

 

[m-g willy]

Couldn't bring myself to shoot a dog unless I SEEN it chaseing down game.
But I kill EVEYY cat I can!
BTW --A few years back I got a nice 6 point white tail after following its tracks with 2 sets of dog tracks along with it. When I came to the end of the trail I found the deer whth its tail rip to shreds and a couple bites on its face and neck and hind quarters. It was still warm and no sign of any dogs(just running it for fun)
Adeer might be fast,but it can only run for so long. If it can't shake a dog from its scent the dog can run it into the ground.(dogs can run all day when they are on scent)

Willy

 

[sidelock]

I killed 3 out of 6 dogs one time that were running my track for over a mile ( I thought they were running a deer at first). When they came upon me at the end of my track they went into attack mode and started circling for a take down. After I got 3 the others took off. I have never left a WILD DOG in the woods since, and never will although I will not shoot a wolf and have never shot a YOTE. :v

 

[Wes/Tex]

Have been directly involved with feral dogs and their damage to herd animals. They will kill sheep and goats if given the chance and are known to do the same to calves and fouls. Some years ago I worked security and a state funded facility that were having serious trouble with sheep and goat kills. We kept getting mamos from the staff to eradicate the coyotes responsible. I kept telling them that coyotes kill for food not just tear out the throat and go on to the next, that's dog pack behavior. One morning I got in the dog pack and thinned the crowd by 5 with the riot fun in the vehicle. No sheep or goat kills for nearly a 9 month period...coyotes my big behind!!

 

[marwat06]

Sidelock what did you use ... I am guessing it wasn't a M/L? In my state you can't have a non-M/L during M/L season even as protection. I guess I better learn to reload faster.

 

[Pork Chop]

I used to hunt an area that was known to have wild dogs. This was on a military base. The base game wardens wanted us to eliminate the dogs if they were seen. They had attacked hunters as well as game. I always carried a .45 while hunting there...

 

[sidelock]

Right on--- this episode took place many years ago during spring gobbler season and my gun of choice for turkeys back then was a single barreled Winchester Mod.37 12 ga. which I still have today. It has taken many turkeys as well as deer------ but my .50 T/C has taken many of each as well, including wild dogs --- and is still going strong after some 30+ yrs and I expect it will take some more. :thumbsup: :thumbsup: :thumbsup:

 

[Walks Alone]

Pork Chop -

In the early 70’s I hunted several species each year at Fort Hunter Liggett and Fort Ord both in CA, but that was the only time civilians normally could bring firearms on those bases at all ”“ and no handguns.

But I had a similar experience to you at Fort Huachuca in SE Arizona in the early 90's. I went there for an ongoing wildlife research project I was doing that was a shared interest with one of the high brass stationed on the base at the time. I gained unlimited access because of him, but he was seldom available so the project had me hiking up into the back canyons and mountains on base alone mostly for a few days each of a couple of years. That first year on the first morning I had a lion come at me face to face a few miles up a side drainage and had to change his mind by shoving a big stick in his face hard. I had had several run-in’s with them, black and grizzly bear on other projects alone in other states that were a lot more serious, so that short encounter really didn't bother me at all. But the brass had a fit when I told my friend about it later that day when he came up to see how it was going and he radioed it back to them. He then told me they were having trouble with lions attacking their troops on training maneuvers up in the canyons and several had been mauled. Normally they didn't allow civilian visitors to bring any handguns on this base, but after they learned about my little run in they asked me to go back down to admin/ops to file an incident report, do all the forms and I was given permission to carry my S&W 44 ”“ and to use it. I only got the permission probably because of my friend, but carrying was the only way they'd let me continue on with the project. Funny thing is over the next couple of years until I finished my research there, even though I saw lots of sign I never saw another lion. The only real constant threat each year on that base was all the Mojave's there, and I had lots of close calls with them (none shot though).