Encouraging dogs to chase/catch small animals - is it acceptable?

I was just wondering if anyone encourages their dogs to "catch" squirrels or other small animals. It seems to be an acceptable thing to do on another board and I was wondering what people here thought. I find it shocking and I don't encourage such behaviors in my dogs.

Do you mean catch & kill for 'fun', or catch & kill to get rid of vermin, eg terriers & rats, or catch & kill for food, eg hounds & rabbits, or just simply to chase?

My dogs will chase cats, rabbits, plovers, etc. on our property but they are not encouraged to do so. They were very pleased when we had myxo through as, for the first time, they could actually catch rabbits but we called them off as we reckoned that the poor bunnies had enough problems without being mauled by dogs who have no expertise in 'clean' killing.

My Danes will chase the rabbits but they never catch them and the young ones go after the pheasants that wander around like chickens but the older dogs have learnt that they will never catch them so don't bother.

I did have a problem with Heidi catching rabbits, for awhile she was sort of fixated on it, in a way it was a good thing because there's a problem with rabbit numbers here, and they're doing a lot of damage to the habitat that English nature have tried so hard to get back to its original state, she did become very good , if thats the right way of putting it at killing the rabbits.
I certainly didn't encourage her to do it and it took a long time to break the habit.

Murph will chase anything with a pulse

No seriously, hes ok with horses and sheep but anything small -rabbits , pheasants and he's off -Its not something I encourage tho ' and with the aid of the long rope its something I'm aiming to stop

Zoi will chase anything that runs from her, but no I do not encourage her to chase after other small animals. I have a little squirrel thats lives in the trees and is always bounching around and I don't want her to kill him.

My Beagle will chase squirrels and rabbits. I tend to try and keep away from warren fields, she goes crazy, I dont really like it, but it's her breed. Not only that, but once she picks up a scent, she seems to go deaf and it takes me ages to get her back. She has never caught one luckily.
I take her to an open meadow where she can still pick up scents (the deers often wander there at night) but she only gets to smell them, and not chase them, so she still gets to have lots of fun

I don't encourage Rocky do do it for a number of reasons..

• I feel sorry for the little blighters
• You Never know what our dogs might catch from them
• They might lash out and take your dogs eye out
• It might encourage you dog to always do this, one day he might go for a neigbours cat/child because of that encouragement
• It's not nice
• JMHO tho!

Willis chases, and kills everything...

His recent victims:

A stick
A leaf
An empty packet of crisps
Me.

Anything small and furry just laughs at him.

Hmmm that prompts me to admit Chloe; That my Sal is a major player in the decimation of empty crisp packets. I admit it my dog kills them at every opportunity

She also chases squirrels-birds etc but has never caught anything, and I do discourage her. I wouldn't want her too catch-kill anything either having cats myself.

Karen