ivan3 wrote:
EMaker wrote: It isn't the only "incivility' in this equation, but I heartily agree it is hugely uncivil! No argument from me there.
The dog owner's irresponsibility is all that matters. If all owners maintained their property responsibly, you'd not find yourself constructing a case that, for all intents and purposes, concludes that if someone throws a rock through one of my windows, I should return the rock to the thrower and be polite while doing so. As I mentioned in my original post someone else's dog on my property is the dog owner's proxy agent of trespass and potential destruction - an unguided missile loosed haphazardly. If the dog owner, instead of the dog, entered the property, got down on their hands and knees and started tearing apart the poultry (penned or not - doesn't matter - my property, yes?) and eating them raw, I'd probably wish I had some injectable haldol at hand (wouldn't shoot them, waste of everyone's time - do have a nice aluminum baseball bat for inducing anesthesia). Dogs are even less predictable and as a deputy sheriff, who laughed at the question, told me `match up slugs from a dog, you've got to be ******* me"
A secure run and coop is required, I agree. Putting down an irresponsible idiot's vermin, on our property is a burden imposed on me by idiots, that's a certainty, QED.
That most certainly is NOT the construction of my case. It is your misinterpretation of my case. Of course, I don't equate dogs and rocks, but hey, thats's just me. For goodness sakes', what a stretch, a dog is NOT a dog owner's proxy. Seriously?! Wow.
I apologize, that was a poor analogy. A rock is an inanimate object, once thrown Newton takes over. It is locked on a specific path, once loosed, and will do a predictable amount of damage at a specific point of impact. A dog is an animate object and unpredictable once loosed. It may well sit when I tell it to and act perfectly fine as the wife calls around to see whose it is, and then it bites our grandson when he tries to pet it. How am I to know? Who is the responsible authority that allowed that dog to arrive at our coop?
When a dog, under the `authority/command' of the owner, retrieves a newspaper or a quail and returns it to the owner it is, indeed, acting as the owner's proxy. You argue that once this `agent' of the owner is killed, it becomes the responsibility of the shooter, to report to the owner all that transpired in order that the shooter's civility won't be questioned, or condemned. So, not only does the shooter have to shoot and clean up his/her dead flock, that same shooter
has to report to the offending agent's ultimate authority, in order to earn respect?
A coward shirks their responsibility, so, I'd suggest setting up a blog to instruct the owners of dogs on the potential consequences of their not reigning in their rogue agents (does that work better than proxy, for ya?). It would be time better spent. The shooter is the aggrieved party, keep it in mind when spinning out opinions on the quality of the shooter's decisions about what they do, on their property. The only judgment about character that I'd hazard to make is to consider them pragmatic utilitarians, e.g., I don't waste my time burying them, I just deliver them to the turkey vulture feeding station - hate to waste the meat... Which brings me back to the subject at hand...
Hunt down an old Remington Nylon 66 (pref. a model made before they moved the manufacture of them to Brazil). It weighs 4.5lb. fully loaded with 15 rounds, effortless to hold on point, and will spit out all 15 between 5 & 8 seconds (really likes to eat hypervelocity ammo). It is an excellent tool for whatever you purpose it to, out to 125yds. One only has to swab/brush the barrel and, every ten years or so, flake a bit of carbon from the injector/sear. Good tools, amen.