posted on July 18, 2002 02:19:15 PM new
Do people really have the grasp of what animals are capable of. I remember years ago debating the re-introduction of wolves into some areas of the US. There is a reason that the earlier settlers killed the bears, coyotes, wolves, wild cats etc.. You can't even allow your children outside when these animals are present.
A few years back a live cam on wild foxes living under a house in urban London was the biggest draw on the BBC TV. Yesterday I read that a fox had entered a London home and attacked a sleeping infant.
A CA mother and children were recently attacked by a group of coyotes and avoided serious injury only by gaining quick entry back into their Condo.
A few years back a CA female adult jogger was killed and eaten by a wild cat.
Just read today of a Raccoon attacking a sleeping infant.
I was raised on a farm and am fully aware of what animals are capable of. Any carnivore is an opportunist, it will attack adults and children under many circumstances, inflicting injury including death.
Even many of those "warm and fuzzy" domestic farm animals can easily kill an adult. I've seen what they can do. The domestic as well as the wild are unpredictable. A Ram (that's a male sheep for you city folks) can seriously injure an adult, and kill a child.
Why do people think that owning a dog is a carefree exercise, and that having wild animals in an urban setting is "cool", except when their child or loved one is injured or killed by one.
Have we forgotten why we killed many of these animals off as we settled the regions? Can we blame African or S Americans for doing the same ?
posted on July 18, 2002 02:26:53 PM new
Part of the problem are movies and TV shows that show animals behaving like humans and the narrator step by step attributing a rational line of thought to the animals actions as if they know what the animal is thinking.
"The mother Cheetah knowing her cubs must soon be on their own sneaks away in the night as they sleep."
How can they have the nerve to say that?
They show people in close intimate contact with bear and other large dangerous animals.
Teachers teach that regarding an animal as inferior is a form of discrimination.
People who attribute love and reasoning ability to their pets also encourage this view.
"What's Lassie trying to tell us? What is it boy?"
ARF ARF - My fool master has fallen down the well and can't feed me - ARF ARF!
posted on July 18, 2002 02:29:38 PM new
The bottom line is that certain breeds are much more likely than others to attack. They should be treated as wild animals and forbidden from being among the human population.
posted on July 18, 2002 02:34:14 PM new
Any dog that is big in relation to you is a risk. So for small children there is no excuse for allowing them to be with an animal unsupervised. Even a small dog can do them severe injury. Or to allow the animal to run free in an urban area.
On Americas funniest home videos theu showed a toddler repeatedly ramming his finger in the dogs anus while it was trying to eat. Nobody stopped the child - they wanted it to continue for the humor to be caught on tape. If the dog had turned and bit the daylights out of the kid he would have been justified.
posted on July 18, 2002 02:35:14 PM new
My chihuahuas are much more likely to attack someone than my Staffordshire Bull Terrier [she is NOT a pitbull though she resembles them {She is much smaller.} that is a different breed] is. She will let anyone steal food from her dish... .animal or human, loves kids and is a sweety..the chis on the other hand are vicious little sh*ts. So which ones should be banned?
It is not the breed it is the owners. The chis got no socialization before I got them and they are little devils.There are dogs in any breed that go bad but that is no reason to ban the whole breed.
Since I know the direction this thread is going and since it is a topic that makes my blood boil I am going to leave you to it now.
posted on July 18, 2002 02:45:32 PM new
Sorry to boil you.
Any dog can be owned responsibly with a little thought and caution.
If people had the smallest amount of (UN)common sense nobody would have to ban anything.
Most of the dogs that cause trouble - if they could investigate deeply enough have been made to be dangerous on purpose. I really believe that. I doubt there are many that suddenally turn bad as this story suggests without any forewarning at all.
But people are good at ignoring signs they don't want to see.
posted on July 18, 2002 02:58:31 PM new
I believe that there are some dogs that cannot be owned responsibly "with a little thought and caution".
There are breeds that may appear to be socialized and safe to own but they are unpredictable. In nearly every story like this one, the dog is reportedly well trained and without any previous problems. The dogs are so powerful that they can overpower any normal sized adult. As I said before in another thread, leashes are useless. Electric fences are useless. It's unreasonable to believe that they will never get out of a fenced area or a house and kill someone.
posted on July 18, 2002 03:34:43 PM new
You are probably correct. I forget that I am so much larger than most people and can pull a 450 lb squeeze one handed so I look at any single dog and figure I can kill him bare handed even if it means getting hurt. Many people can not.
posted on July 18, 2002 07:14:07 PM new
i like my sign at the front door,
Dogs welcomed, children on a leash!
gravid:
>>>So for small children there is no excuse for allowing them to be with an animal unsupervised. Even a small dog can do them severe injury. Or to allow the animal to run ree in an urban area. <<<
you are 100 % right
any dog can attack if he is angry,
even my 9 pound Bichon could do damage,
if a small child pulls his ear the wrong way he will bite,
but the kids dont know,
what I hate the most is parents letting their little kids run around and just walk up to any dog (happens to me often)
and they just start petting him,
actualy most of the time it looks like they are beating him on his little head so of course he gets angry and shows his teeth.
when I ask them to stop most of the moms get angry because I wont let their kid pet my doggie, well ,i dont want a law suit..
the animals are not the only ones at fault.
oh yeah, and Bichons are very good with small kids . (that dont pull their ears
posted on July 18, 2002 08:08:26 PM new
Two weeks ago in the local newspaper they had a picture of a coyote that now lives in our area- but where there is one coyote, there are others. I live in a heavily populated area, well over 1 million people.
Many people thought this was neat. My first thought was to hunt them done and kill or relocate them, but this was never mentioned by any officials.
Coyotes will kill a human if they get a chance, especially the very old and young. They will also make meals of your pets.
A black bear was recently spotted just 3 miles west of here too.
I don't believe that these animals can or should live in close proximity with humans.
posted on July 18, 2002 09:21:29 PM new
We were in the Upper Peninsula of Mi way back on a dirt logging road and saw a beautiful coyote, We stopped and my wife tried to get a picture of him but he turned and ran into a gulch behind him. My wife said Oh I wanted a picture - too bad. Well the wind was towards us and the coyote had turned to the left as it went down. I said I can get you a shot if you will follow me and keep keep very very quiet. She said ok. So I pulled ahead about 100 yards dumped the change out of my pocket and ran around back and got a mini-14 Ruger out of the trunk and two extra clips. I told her no talking and when I go down you go down and don't move. She nodded OK. The gulch ran away from the road so I ran forward about 50 yards and went into a rolling walk that makes almost no noise and got down and elbow walked about the last ten yards or so to where we could see all the way to the bottom of the gulch and I lay down with the rifle in front of me and froze perfectly still. I was not positive my wife was quiet enough but sure enough in no more than a minute along came 6 coyote moving just as quiet as we had with the wind against them. When they were only about 30 yards in front of us the camera shutter clacked and they immediatly ran away from the sound fanning out from each other.
I of course had not been able to look at her beside me but she had the sense to put the camera up to her face before she froze so there was no movement before the sound. Some of the things I have tried to teach her have penetrated. She can do a fair ambush. She was surprised I brought the rifle. I explained that was in case they DIDN't run away. I told her 6 of them could be a problem. She said you KNEW there were more. Of course - I have seen them out west lots of times in groups. That's what I expect when I see one to find more.
I think she could do bigger game. A rifle each and a couple claymores and she could do game that shoots back if she had to.
posted on July 18, 2002 09:28:26 PM new
This lady was killed by her 4 pit bulls, which are notorious for becoming aggressive for no reason. I can't imagine what they're like in packs. I truly feel badly for this woman, although her choice of dog - a dog bred for fighting, might not have been the best one for a house pet, let alone 4 of them.
As far as needing to kill off the wild life by settlers, that was to make money from their skins, not because the animals tried hurting anyone. Same in Africa.
posted on July 18, 2002 09:34:18 PM new
A black bear was recently spotted just 3 miles west of here too.
I don't believe that these animals can or should live in close proximity with humans.
So what are you proposing? Oh my goodness somebody saw a bear...let's go kill all the bears we can find because they shouldn't live in close proximity to humans? Why not move all the humans back into their ant-hill cities so the wildlife can live in peace? Just as silly.......
Our home is a ranch. Our nearest (human neighbor is 1/4 mile away. We have lots of domestic and semi-domestic animals, all of whom are potential dinner to the predators whose habitat we share. We are in the middle of a 4 year long drought. There is nothing for the wild critters to eat. Our sheep, normally grass fed, are living on expensive hay and grain. We lost 4 lambs this year to a lion I have seen but who was too far away to get a shot at. I will not shoot her unless she is inside my corral fence, directly threatening my family or livestock. She is hungry, and I firmly believe that finding a way to deal with her short of killing her is part of the bargain in living here. Her kind were here surviving long before my family, and we have owned this land since before the US was a country. We can learn a lot from our wild neighbors, and I for one will stand for their rights any old time. They are a big part of the reason we choose to live here..Our sheep all go into a barn at night, as well as the horses, the goats, the chickens and the geese. The dogs, a giant schnauzer who is not afraid of big cats or people and two border collies who would happily die for their sheep, have the run of the place at night. When our hungry feline comes around, they raise holy hell and she usually decides it's not worth it. We lost the lambs one weekend when we were gone and our neighbors came over too late to lock up the sheep. She fed her babies that night, and to tell you the truth, I don't mind that much. I will admit to admiring her natural cunning, her will to survive,her absolute devotion to her young..Our son is not allowed to ride his horse or his bike or be outside the fence within an hour of dusk. These are the small costs attendant to living on the fringe of the wilds. Small price to pay for no cops, no nosy neighbors, no city noise, light pollution, air pollution, thought pollution....I went looking for a wayward house cat two or three weeks ago, and my hike took me along the edge of the creek that runs along one of our property boundaries...There was the lion, up on a bluff across the creek, napping in the shade of an overhang. We eyed each other for a while, I even sat down and watched her watching me....I would not have received this rare gift if all the lions had been killed off to make my area "safe"...people should consider, before they buy in a new tract development on the fringes of town, "whose homes were upset by the building of this instant neighborhood?" It wasn't just the rubes and bumpkins like me who sold out their heritage and were displaced, it was also the coyotes, lions, bobcats, scorpions, rattlesnakes, foxes and other critters, who suddenly find themselves unwanted and unwelcome. To adopt the attitude that humans have a right to inhabit anywhere they damned well please and the wild animals have just got to go if they cause trouble is the height of human arrogance. Most of the people who have unfortunate run-ins with wildlife have done something stupid, like hiking in the woods with some idiot city-dog who insists on sticking his nose into everything. These stories you hear about raccoons coming in a window and eating somebody's baby...well, umm, raccoons (one of my least favorite species by the way...bad tempered, greedy and dangerous) don't just APPEAR out of no where. Did the homeowners bother to inquire about their neighborhood, especially if they were on the edge of a wood or riparian area?? The intelligence of someone who would leave a child sleeping near an open window is qestionable in the best of circumstances....Probably figured the government would protect them from the nasty wild animals...None of this has much to do with the sad cases where people are injured and killed by "friendly" pets..but in most cases human stupidity is involved at some level, on that I wholeheartedly agree.
posted on July 18, 2002 09:47:52 PM new
profe51 - Well said lotta good points. When you are sure he can handle it it would be real nice if the kid is armed when he is out past the fence. When I was too young to have a gun my dad still let me go out in the swamp - but I was a big kid and I was given a 28 inch cane knife with a whale bone handle that was my grandmothers.
It could cut a 3 inch sapling in an easy stroke so there was not much danger anything was going to make me lunch without becoming kabobs. Then when I was 11 I got a long barreled pistol. The long barrel was to make me more aware of which direction it was pointing until I got some experience. My mom made me run through a box of shells a week until she was sure I wouldn't get any better.
I never had a natural talant like her so she was kinda disappointed.
My son is 9, he is learning to shoot now, and when he is 10 he will take the NRA safe hunter course..(about the only positive thing that organization does these days, IMO), and then he will be able to go out a little further afield by himself..eventually he will be responsible for checking the outlying fences for breaks, and he'll need a gun then........
posted on July 18, 2002 10:21:35 PM new
Sounds like about the same timeline except he will be on horse so he will have a rifle which will be safer and more effective. I loved going out in the swamp along the sound and staying until the stars were out fishing. Also on the barrier islands crabbing and surf casting.
The islands used to be empty. You could walk 15 miles down the beach from the road head and not know a European had ever set foot on the continent. Now there are $500,000 vacation homes one after another. If you talked about building back then the natives would tell you you were nuts. One hurricane and there could be island where the channel was and channel where your house had been. Now eveyone has Federal insurance.
posted on July 18, 2002 10:30:00 PM new
our biggest concern checking fences is rattlesnakes..the 2 work horses are pretty cool when they encounter one, they know to back away without kicking up a lot of dust..a 12 guage short barrel shotgun is the best for snakes, you don't have to spend a lot of time aiming..again, we don't go out of our way to kill snakes, but sometimes it's unavaoidable....
posted on July 18, 2002 10:42:14 PM new
You don't sound like you are eager to kill anything. I like that in a person.
But if you can take the recoil a 12 ga. sure will do it. I like the dynamite/nobel slugs for sleeping in bear country. I have never had to shoot one but they sacare the daylights out of me when they are close enough to smell their bad breath. For defence I load a bundle of brazing rod cut with wire cutters in 3/4 inch length so the end are chisle shaped. Spreads fast some turn side ways and some hit end on. Don't shoot 'em in a choked barrel.
posted on July 18, 2002 10:58:14 PM new
you're right about not wanting to kill things, in the spring we butcher some of our extra lambs, and I lose sleep for days before the "matanza", wild critters are even harder. I have let go of pretty much all hunting except for birds, I still like to go shotgunning.....
there's no choke on a 20 inch 12 guage barrel!! that sounds like a good idea, might just try it....
posted on July 18, 2002 11:10:24 PM new
A Bear 3 miles away ? I have news for you I have seen a liscensed professional put no less than 4 darts into a bear each supposedly a knockout dose. when we carried him over to a pen he ran up the side of a telephone pole. When a Bear is ticked off at you they click their teeth,something worth remembering, I came upon a family deep in the woods today shackers that is city dwellers with a property, I told them that the Bigest bear in the area lived in the area they were in they looked at me like yeah right, I called one of the teenagers with me to come over out of the car when they answered no way the one parent said to me mine dont listen either, I said A they are not mine and B they know where you are and thats why they dont want to get out of the car.
I think a bear can cover a lot more than 3 miles in less than one day. I have been chased by bear twice once there was a vehicle to duck into, (Near hwy 13 and 8 in Wis) and the worst time (8mi west of 13 on 70 in wis) there was a logging truck that came up on us blasting the horn.I do think that that logger might have saved my life.
(who knows maybe the Bear got me and your all a dream)
I have seen dozens of coyotes and never once felt threatened in the least.
Somebody show me where a non rabid wolf or coyote has ever killed a person in North America.
As far as Livestock a great pyrennes of better yet a few will do the job quite nicely.
Used to take the rattlers and eat them and make nice hatbands out of the skins, say you got one of those smokey bear type hats and instead we used to pin one side up like the aussies do. Course you have to have an award to pin there to do it, we would take the leather band and replace it with a snake band. and then before the feds went wild when we were hiking each time we found a feather add it to the band. Now some ass has figured this should be illegal.
The meat is excellent but you must remember that the head has primitive reflexes and will still bite down after death. The teeth were always sharper that surgical steel. Got nailed and sicker than hell once.
We used to tell a story about two guys who were out the one guy Bob tripped over a log and a western diamondback nailed him on the butt. the other guy to town for the dr. but when he got there the dr was in the middle of delivering a difficult baby. while working the doctor told him to make 2 cuts oon each side of the wound and quickly suck out all the poison and spit it out. we raced back to the bitten bob Bob said where is the doctor his friend said he couldnt come he was delivering a baby, well what did he say ?
Awwww
He said your gonna die.
after a few stories like that tenderfeet would always pay a little more attention.
I have 5 pitbulls right now and they love me I play with them each day.
My friends have bears, NO I Will Not go In with Them. I will babysit young but nothing over 50lbs any more.
What scares me is ignorance. Now a raccoon there is an aminal that is to be left alone.
The carry rabies rarely, But they do carry toxoplasma gondii (causes blindness in infants) and visceral larval migrans (worms that migrate thru human tissue). I have seen them set off by a strange sound where no human on earth could have been prepared for the assault that followed. Not a good pet.
We have wolves here they dont bother anything. I see a lot of claims that wolves killed something that are pure financial related bulls---.
posted on July 19, 2002 08:42:55 PM new
"I am arrogant...."
Then I'd stay out of the woods if I were you.....or maybe you can find a wood where all the "dangerous" animals have been killed off for your safety...
