I'm Mad About This!

[taxidermist]

Less not forget the Ranger who shot a goat that was harassing some horses.

Where is the Innocent until proven guilty. Way to many people have convicted the man and dog of running deer.

a 10 inch beagle is a small very small dog, dont think it could harass a deer.

I am not a dog lover by any means but I think it was wrong of the ranger.

I live close to the river and have a large portion of my life and have seen the Ranger Harass a lot of locals over the years.

This action was wrong in many ways, maybe on both sides. Sad no one knows both sides.

[ness]

Looking at this whole thing with a healthy dose of skepticism is probably best. It's a one-sided story that frankly seems pretty hard to believe as told. But, I can't really see too many other explanations, and there are certain facts that appear certain.

The fact that's indisputable is that the dog was shot. Apparently, it had a collar and the guy had been looking for it in a fairly small area, for a relatively short period of time -- the same day. I would think the ranger wouldn't even consider killing a collared dog, especially a dog typically used for hunting rabbits, during the rabbit season.

As for a beagle harassing a deer -- well, I just don't buy that. Of course, I don't know the particulars, but it seems to most likely the deer could have gotten away -- it certainly wasn't a life-or-death situation. But, what if that beagle had the deer pinned in somehow? Does that warrant killing a collared dog? Nope -- and it never will either. Facts are, there are too darn many deer as it is, and he killed a guy's pet. He needs to keep that darn gun in the holster unless there's imminent danger to humans. The law clearly was written to allow killing feral animals, or ones that are consistently a problem for the wildlife. Seems like this idiot felt he had authority to kill whatever he wanted to, as long as he could claim it was harassing wildlife, so things obviously need to be tightened up some.

As for the argument that the guy didn't have control of his dog and he got what he deserved -- that's nonsense, and frankly cold-hearted. The only way to completely assure control is to put the dog on a lead, and that's not required or even expected. Sometimes a dog will run, get lost, whatever. That's just the nature of it. If you've got your dogs trained well enough that you can always get them to do what you want, that's just great. But, people legally hunt with dogs and dogs don't always listen, so there needs to be some room in there for this situation.

So, I still don't know all the facts, but I'm glad this thing got some press. These rangers need to held to a very high standard, and keep those darn guns in their holsters. I think I know enough to call the ranger that shot the dog a cold-blooded SOB, no matter what the rules say. And, we don't need cowboys like that roaming around with sidearms.

I hope his $^&%*^ gets fired, I hope they get enough bad press that they have to admit this was wrong, and that they sit those rangers down and tighten up rules governing when they can shoot -- and that ought to be darn close to never.

[Wayne SW/MO]

I think too many people either don't know, or have forgotten that deer don't always run. They are more than likely to confront an irritate that they don't fear. I suspect that living with coyotes and large bobcats that can harm them gives them a sense of what to fear, and what not to fear. We can't assume that the ranger understood what was actually going on.