April 14, 2009
Hounding The Animal Shelters
Animal shelters can be burdened by abandoned hunting dogs
If an abandoned hunting dog makes it to a kind neighbor's home, the unwanted animal is sometimes taken in, nursed back to health and given proper veterinary treatment.
Most dogs who survive are taken in to local animal shelters.
Many of these facilities—some subsisting only on donations—are overrun with hunting dogs, particularly during and at the end of the hunting season.
Some animal shelters report that as much as 90 percent of the dogs they take in are abandoned hunting dogs.
With Everything from Fleas to Cancer
Hunting dogs are often more difficult and expensive to find homes for. They are most often covered in ticks and fleas. Some are covered in mange. Many are emaciated. Some come in with broken bones and cancerous tumors.
Many cower when approached, having been abused their entire lives, or are entirely unsocialized, having lived most of their lives in a pen or at the end of a chain.
One of our members wrote to us, stating that "more than 50 percent of our intake results from irresponsible owners of hunting dogs. They release old, diseased or poor performing animals into the wild...Over 80 percent are heartworm positive."