[QUOTE]
Agreed, this is just hearsay and not relevant to any argument regarding hunting

Also hearsay based on your second hand conversation with your vet whom we havent met. I would like to see actual evidence for the increase in fox mange, and what connection the ban in fox hunting has?

Besides which, for dogs and humans, its not that common to be transferred from a fox, it's non lethal disease, and its quite easily treated.
This means you could not class cite mange under the logic of cullling for disease control.
You 'could' justify it under that banner of disease control within the fox population, amongst which this disease can be fatal and easily transferable.
Again, you would need evidence that hunting with hounds is the most efficient way to do this.
Onew assumes if your assewrtion that it transfers to dogs easily is so, then you wouldnt really want a poack of hounds near mangey foxes helping to spread the disease and making them poorly?

I know that they still hunt in my area, and when i was little i used to hunt, but i was mainly to do with the horses, rather than the hunting itself. I don't like the thought of a fox being torn to shreads - i think t is cruel, but on the other hand, farmers need to protect their livestock.
I used to have a job as a hunt groom, but again, i was more interested in working with the horses than the hunting itself, as horse jobs in my area are quite hard to come by.
This is a very hard subject to discuss, you are always going to get for and against.

[QUOTE=Krusewalker;1852760] Nope, easily found on the net in several places, also in veterinary records.

WHOA!! None, lethal, are you serious? Loads of dogs are PTS with it, especially those in rescues who find it expensive and too time consuming to treat. Its not easy to treat at all, it takes many many months sometimes and many dogs never fully recover, are you confusing sarcoptic mange with demodetic mange?

Foxhounds yes, regularly "dipped" for mange but also very healthy, you can do a quick search and verify my comments on healthy dogs being less likely to contact the mange.

On the OT fox/dog hybrid thing, a bit of googling indicates that there is no hard proof of the existance of Doxesand that it may very well be genetically impossible. At best, a male fox mating with a female dog would result in sterile offspring.

Another interesting snippet is the Russian experiments with domesticating foxes which resulted in increasingly dog like foxes as the nervous/aggressive traits were being bred out. i.e. tail wagging, barking etc....

On the humans playing god thing, I am of the opinion that human kind at this time is like a virus spreading all over the planet. Unless we stop it and become more symbiotic, it will all end badly! This includes not killing wild animals for sport or because they are inconvenient to us or the animals we have domesticated. Some controlled culling might be necessary but by and large, it's best (IMHO) to butt out and let nature find a balance.

Well this is a contentious subject and unlikely to reach a conclusion. I am opposed to the hunting of foxes with dogs as I believe that it is a moral question above all else and if humans are 'superior' in anyway then it should be in their ability to reason. Of course coming from a family where my parents used to hunt and part of their livelihood came via the hunt then I don't have to look far for a different point of view.

I have had a dog that caught sarcoptic mange (almost certainly from foxes) and have seen many mange ridden foxes in the UK. I think that on balance that the hunt is an relatively ineffective way of controlling the fox population. After the ban I saw less foxes than before- was this down to other methods of control?

I now live in a country without fox hunting (with horses and dogs) though hunting with guns is a national pass time. I haven't seen any mangy foxes either.

One thing is for sure those on either side will find compelling arguments for their respective cases.

I already googled. That info isnt so prevalent.
What vet records, you are just doing a gnasher there
However, as you said to gnasher, as you bought it up as an argument, id be pleased for you to provide us with the evidence to the contrary.
Also, you still havent replied why this relates to the ban in hunting with hounds???
No, i said 'non-lethal'. Saracoptic mange, by definition, and any vet would tell you this, is classed as a non lethal disease. Old or poorly dogs with an already weak immune system may die from complications created from this disease, but quite rarely

No, I am not - I already know all this, I worked in rescue 12 years, I treated dozens of sarcoptic and demodectic mange dogs myself.
Never caught it though, wore gloves and aprons.
The term easily treatable applies in the sense the vet can diagnose, prescribe, and once the medication is finished, in the vast majority of cases, the condition is cured.

However, if you wish to define the phrase in terms of the work involved, then, yes, it does require some effort and time on behalf of the owner.
But thats by the by, comes with the territory.
Most rescues acknowledge this and get one with.
BTW - "Loads" arent PTS in rescue due to mange, as you state.
''Most'' of us care better than that.
As should owners when it comes to budgeting.

Therefore i use the term 'easily treatable' medically (which i lifted from a vets website, btw), compared to say, foxes, where its a whole dfferent ball game.

Anyway, this is still all academic, as none of this disussion has any relavance to the hunting with hounds issue.
I refer back to my original bogus argument point.

I dont need to, i just said this in my post you have quoted above!
You have missed my point, that being you are contradicting yourself.
If you say the vast majority of fit, young healthy dogs are unlikely to contract sarcoptic mange from foxes, and therefore it's relatively safe for packs of hounds to hunt them, and if they do catch mange, reasonably easy to deal with, then you cannot cite mange as a reason for culling foxes under the term 'disease control'!!

Hence, just more random dingenuous bogus beefing up list points that both sides churn out.
In other words, propaganda!

Great post wolfdog

I too lived in a country where hunting is by gun, not hound. And this was efficient enough - obviously not in all cases, but no more or less than hunting with hounds.
Hence, you cannot reasonably argue one against the other, either way round, when it comes to the abscence or prescence of the humane kill.
The risks are the same, the suffering of the animal is the same, some would even argue that neither even earns the epithet "humane kill".

I agree also that their is no correlation with the issue of mangey foxes.

Re you last sentence, one thing i would disagree on though.
When it comes to both sides, these sorts of aguements (propanganda) arent very compelling at all, as one can easily see thru the smokescreens.

(due to easily detectable gaps in logic).

[QUOTE=Krusewalker;1852812]I already googled. That info isnt so prevalent.
What vet records, you are just doing a gnasher there
However, as you said to gnasher, as you bought it up as an argument, id be pleased for you to provide us with the evidence to the contrary.
Also, you still havent replied why this relates to the ban in hunting with hounds??? How dare you!!
This link show the severity of mange and also tells the risks of cross infection to people and Dogs. Its a Fox site so it wont tell you how widespread it is, but it does demonstrate the seriousness of the disease.
http://www.nfws.org.uk/mange/
3435 bottles of mange treatment in 12mths, thats some figure.

Ill look for some other info later for you I dont have time at the minute.

Nope, as in the above link will show you, Foxes dies from this, healthy ones they are more susceptible to it than pet dogs. You only need watch Animal cops program to know how many dogs die from it, and how badly it affects them.

I disagree, all illness is treatable, but so many are incurable.

However, if you wish to define the phrase in terms of the work involved, then, yes, it does require some effort and time on behalf of the owner.
But thats by the by, comes with the territory.
Most rescues acknowledge this and get one with.
BTW - "Loads" arent PTS in rescue due to mange, as you state.
''Most'' of us care better than that.
As should owners when it comes to budgeting.

Therefore i use the term 'easily treatable' medically (which i lifted from a vets website, btw), compared to say, foxes, where its a whole dfferent ball game.

Anyway, this is still all academic, as none of this disussion has any relavance to the hunting with hounds issue.
I refer back to my original bogus argument point.

Ill answer this later KW, Im photographing two dogs this morning and they have arrived.

Very interesting points raised on both sides of the debate.

Dawn, just to shut you up I will do my best to get in touch with my friend asap. Unfortunately, she does not have a land line and moves house on a fairly regular basis to avoid her ex husband finding out where she lives. I received a xmas card from her, but not a note of her latest address or mobile number (which she also changes fairly regularly), but I will ring the latest number in the hopes I get hold of her. She will be able to fill me in on the nitty gritty details.

That should have been sent as a pm.


Question is is the hunting with dogs a good or bad law and does it need to be improved, changed or got rid off.