Commission was wise to table dog collar proposal

Readers have added texture to the debate about an aborted idea to require hunting dogs to wear GPS collars equipped with correction devices.

The Arkansas Game and Fish Commission tabled the proposed regulation at its April committee meetings after it became obvious that such a regulation would not only be unenforceable, but that it would also drive a lot of people out of hunting.

Grant Ballard, an attorney, articulated that point clearly at the meeting when he talked about the beagles his grandfather bought when Ballard was a child. They were rabbit dogs, and Ballard learned to hunt in their company with his grandfather. Ballard said that his grandfather probably would not have bought the dogs if he had also been required to pay another $1,500 for a GPS dog collar.

I’m thinking of the late Hollis Foster of Holly Grove, a friend whose company in the rabbit fields of Prairie County I deeply treasured. He cast as many as four beagles in a field. I doubt that he could have afforded to equip all of his dogs with such devices.

Darren McFadden, the former Arkansas Razorbacks Heisman Trophy finalist, is an avid rabbit hunter. He has six beagles. McFadden said he learned to hunt as a child. His mentors could not have afforded GPS collars.

Zackery Taylor, community college liaison for the office of transfer student services at the University of Arkansas-Little Rock, said the commission’s decision to table the dog collar proposal made his family very happy.

“Dog running has been our family tradition out in Lake Greeson WMA since before I was born,” Taylor wrote in an email. “It continues to be the one time a year when almost our entire family [nationwide] gets together to enjoy one another’s company while being able to provide food for our tables in the months to come. We have never sought more game than is needed and obey all regulations. My grandpa, now 80 years old, has always bred beagles and prepares for our hunt all year.

He would never want to put a corrective collar on his dogs as he feels it is abusive. To us grandkids and now greatgrands, [over 30 total] helping raise pups and training them to run has always been a marker in our adolescence on learning responsibility and other familial values.”

Taylor’s comment about corrective collars being abusive added another layer of texture we hadn’t considered. Hunting dog owners consider shock collars to be barbaric. The only exceptions I know are bird dog owners in the West. They all run rangy English pointers that will tear across the next county if not restrained. If a dog is upwind of a handler in a stiff blow, it won’t hear bellowed commands. And pointers are so hard-headed that even a welltrained, well-mannered dog will follow his nose over his handler’s voice. A corrective collar is the only way to get that dog’s attention and prevent it from getting lost.

It happens. The late George Buckenhoffer had a fine German shorthair pointer named Ike. That dog had some issues that would occasionally cause him to go rogue. The most notorious incident, and the one that prompted Ike’s retirement, occurred during a quail hunt in the Ouachita National Forest near Waldron. Ike took out after a scent and was not seen again for about two weeks. A rancher found him emaciated in a pasture near Mena.

A correctional collar might have prevented that unfortunate event, but I’ve yet to see a rabbit hound, coonhound or squirrel dog that needed a correctional collar or that would benefit from one. The nature of hunting rabbits, squirrels and raccoons hunt requires dogs to cover a lot of ground. A squirrel dog and coonhound check in vocally with its handler when it trees game. Rabbit dogs and coonhounds are always in aural contact.

The same is true for deer dogs, but the complaints about deer dogs are really complaints about the behavior of deer dog owners.

The 30 or so people who turned out to oppose the regulation are different than the stealthy, solitary hunter who defines contemporary deer hunting. They have little in common, and many deer dog runners have not adapted to the presence of new neighbors who resent trespassing by proxy.

That’s a different issue that would not be solved with GPS/correctional collars. The commission was prudent to table the proposal.