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Thread: How do you lose the guilt of hunting?

  1. #81
    Senior Member BENESSE's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by hunter63 View Post
    LOL...They are not pets....they are "furkids"and we found out it was so hard to not have any...."
    So right. No matter the heartache of losing them, thinking you can't go through it again, it is so worth having them in your life for however long it turns out to be. They make you a better human being. As someone famous once said, (forgot who) "I strive to be the kind of person my dog thinks I am."


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    Senior Member Manwithnoname's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by hunter63 View Post
    LOL.......Sucker!......
    I love a good dog story...They say yu can't buy love...never brought home a dog.

    We actually went from having dogs, mostly Lab's and a couple of shepards ...sometimes 4 at a time for over 50 years....
    Until 2013.......Was a bad year....for us...

    Labor day....I lost Gunner....my 4 year old trained duck dog...Still don't know why...got something and died in 5 days.
    That was the last year I hunt serious for ducks....wasn't the same.

    December I had my heart surgery....no shot guns or big guns for a year.

    Jan. MIL passed...90's

    Feb.... Maggie the lab, BIL dog that I hunted with and was part of the family...she was blind, had skin conditions, took a lot of doctoring, But was still a 100 pound lover lap dog...Passed at 13 years...

    She was the last...we were out of dogs.....
    Problem was , no dogs to holler at...so all DW and had to holler at each other..LOL.
    It was soooo quite .

    Every once in a while you would catch a glimpse of a dog, or a shadow, out of the corner of your eye around the house....kinda spooky in a good way.

    Come March our Ducks Unlimited Dinner took place...Found out there was going to be Silver Lab pup in the auction.
    Guys were giving me a bad time about buying it..

    Dinner night arrives, and I see there was 2 pups there.......DW (she does the door raffle) grabbed one pup to play with it as she normally does.....

    Before the auction...our President called us, and the whole committee up front of the group.
    Announced that we had had a bad year so they had gotten together,.. chipped in to buy that pup.....and presented DW and I with the pup she was holding.

    We both kinda lost it.....Bella came home with us....to be the followed by Molly (springer) the following year...(yeah I buy dogs.)

    As far as sight picture and memories go....I recall most every deer, elk, antelope, turkeys, ducks and geese hunting trips, and even most pheasants and trips.
    Memories so clear that I can tell you what time of day, weather, gun I was shooting, who I was with....like reliving it in my mind,...and some time at those campfire "remember when....have a beer" evenings.

    Getting dimmer a bit...but DW say I can't remember her birthday...but can remember the trips.

    Yup, Rick...there have been a few bucks that I just sat and watched.... with a "Holy Molly, would you look at THAT!"...and watch it move off, never really giving any thought to shooting at it.
    Sucker+!!! Hahaha, yeah well what can I say? I think you said it best, "they say you can't buy love", yeah I'll dispute that one. 90% of the time I think she's the greatest thing since sliced bread. The other 10%?? The little turds purpose for being born is to be a pain in my a$$!!! No matter how hard I come down on her, 5 seconds later she's right beside me staring up with puppy dog I'm sorry eyes. A week ago today, she made a jail break from her kennel. She actually broke a bar on it. I came home to a couple of boots as chew toys and a corner of my $100 4" thick memory foam bed topper in confetti sized pieces everywhere. Well, here we are a week later and as I write this her chin is laying on my right thigh after her and my Aussie helped me take out a ribeye. I hope I'm as lucky as you my friend. When it all starts getting cloudy, I hope these are the ones, along with my kids, that stay clear! As far as staying on topic with the thread, when you hunt with a lab and "miss", it's more guilt looking in their eyes asking "wtf?" Than it is to make the shot! Yes, labs do give you that look and it's a universal language. Especially when complete with the sigh.

  3. #83
    Senior Member Manwithnoname's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by BENESSE View Post
    So right. No matter the heartache of losing them, thinking you can't go through it again, it is so worth having them in your life for however long it turns out to be. They make you a better human being. As someone famous once said, (forgot who) "I strive to be the kind of person my dog thinks I am."
    When Jake (my last chocolate hunting buddy) and I parted company, my duck hunting passion accompanied him. It has taken 15yrs and a little black girl giving me those eyes to start rebuilding that passion. My youngest daughter (the same one whose fault it is I have this pup) has given me back a lanyard full of calls. If I didn't know any better, I'd think I had been set up. Unfortunately, my dekes and waders werent given to her along with the calls. You are right. One dog took my duck hunting passion with him when he left. Another brought that passion back the moment she sat at my feet and looked me in the eye. I owe it to her and to her predecessor too, to pass that passion on. I can only hope I can coax my daughter into joining the cold, wet, miserable, magic of a sunrise over a spread, a thermos of coffee, and your best friends. There ain't much better than that.

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    Senior Member hunter63's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Manwithnoname View Post
    Sucker+!!! Hahaha, yeah well what can I say? I think you said it best, "they say you can't buy love", yeah I'll dispute that one. 90% of the time I think she's the greatest thing since sliced bread. The other 10%?? The little turds purpose for being born is to be a pain in my a$$!!! No matter how hard I come down on her, 5 seconds later she's right beside me staring up with puppy dog I'm sorry eyes. A week ago today, she made a jail break from her kennel. She actually broke a bar on it. I came home to a couple of boots as chew toys and a corner of my $100 4" thick memory foam bed topper in confetti sized pieces everywhere. Well, here we are a week later and as I write this her chin is laying on my right thigh after her and my Aussie helped me take out a ribeye. I hope I'm as lucky as you my friend. When it all starts getting cloudy, I hope these are the ones, along with my kids, that stay clear! As far as staying on topic with the thread, when you hunt with a lab and "miss", it's more guilt looking in their eyes asking "wtf?" Than it is to make the shot! Yes, labs do give you that look and it's a universal language. Especially when complete with the sigh.
    Ain't that the truth.....everyone that has ever had a good dog(s) can relate...

    They look at you with those eye to say...."I love you daddy"....like grandkids...
    It hurts when you lose one them....but they always give you so much more back....

    Had a shepherd back when along with a little yellow dog (sort short mini lab??? fat little thing.)...Along with my lab.

    THe lab was my pheasant and duck dog....and a good one....but the other two looked so disappointed when they had to stay home......so I took all of them.
    Shepherd didn't like water....but would go thru or swim.....kinda like "OK... if this it what it takes ...I'll do it"

    She was a sight hunter...and figured out the pheasants were in the tall weeds , grass and brush....so would look in all of them.... Kept about 20 feet in front of me and if one flushed she would stop and look around at me, as if to say...HERE"S ONE.... are we hunting these today, Right?
    If I brought up the shotgun, she would take off after it.... she was like a center fielder, running it down and hold it down till I got there.
    If it was something I didn't want to shoot.....she would look back...if I didn't react, she would just go back to hunting.

    The little yellow dog ran down thru ever trail and hole in the brush, chasing anything out...but hated guns...When I would bring up the gun...she would just wince and wait till the shot was over....would get tired so ended up getting carried back to the truck in my game bag.

    Lab just hunted with her nose and sneak to flush birds run down cripples , a retrieve them.

    I really still miss my "team" (like I do all my dogs)......we got a lot of birds, covered a lot of ground and enjoyed the hunt.
    There were times I hunted with a broom stick...they didn't care ....the hunt was the best part,.... fresh air, friends, dogs, rain, mud.....chilli and beers after.

    Feeling a bit nostalgic this evening...got back from a funeral of another hunting partner, Wally 87...the father of friends we all hunted together.
    Ducks, geese ,deer, fish....camp stories.... and even an owl story.
    RIP Wally...


    BTW how does a dog eat a Mora #1....and not get cut...

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    Last edited by hunter63; 01-20-2018 at 10:41 PM.
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    Senior Member Manwithnoname's Avatar
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    Hunter, I am sorry for your loss. I know you're older but even at my age, it's a hunting buddy to not be replaced. A few years back I lost an uncle that was wholly responsible for what I know of rabbit hunting with beagels today. It had been a lot of years since we hunted together but memories I'll take to the grave.

    Kind of like your motley Crew, the first dog I ever owned that I'd truly call a hunter was a cocker spaniel. I know, originally they were bred as hunters. Well, this little guy did his ancestors proud. He would site hunt anything and retrieve anything. Back to the ducks, I had him when I was very first getting into the quackers. Back then one of the lakes in my area was newly flooded. It was loaded with newly flooded timber and the Woodies were thick as mosquitos. The little guy might not have had a double coat or the endurance of a water dog, but he would retrieve until you called him off, even if he was half drowned. At the same time, my oldest was a just brought home baby. He rarely left her side, and let very few people besides me and her mom anywhere near that baby.

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    Senior Member hunter63's Avatar
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    LOL.....Quote.....Kind of like your motley Crew< quote..
    I like that.
    Or as I had to explain to a kinda "Uppity up-land hunter" in the parking lot of a hunting area....when he said...."What kinda dogs are those?"

    "Them's Hunting dogs....Bud....."
    ...as the lab was rolling in the mud puddle...little yellow dog sniffing butts...and the shepherd kept running all over as if to say...."Come on... Dad hurry up....there is stuff out here,... lets go get'em"
    Geezer Squad....Charter Member #1
    Evoking the 50 year old rule...
    First 50 years...worried about the small stuff...second 50 years....Not so much
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  7. #87
    Senior Member Manwithnoname's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by hunter63 View Post
    Ain't that the truth.....everyone that has ever had a good dog(s) can relate...

    They look at you with those eye to say...."I love you daddy"....like grandkids...
    It hurts when you lose one them....but they always give you so much more back....

    Had a shepherd back when along with a little yellow dog (sort short mini lab??? fat little thing.)...Along with my lab.

    THe lab was my pheasant and duck dog....and a good one....but the other two looked so disappointed when they had to stay home......so I took all of them.
    Shepherd didn't like water....but would go thru or swim.....kinda like "OK... if this it what it takes ...I'll do it"

    She was a sight hunter...and figured out the pheasants were in the tall weeds , grass and brush....so would look in all of them.... Kept about 20 feet in front of me and if one flushed she would stop and look around at me, as if to say...HERE"S ONE.... are we hunting these today, Right?
    If I brought up the shotgun, she would take off after it.... she was like a center fielder, running it down and hold it down till I got there.
    If it was something I didn't want to shoot.....she would look back...if I didn't react, she would just go back to hunting.

    The little yellow dog ran down thru ever trail and hole in the brush, chasing anything out...but hated guns...When I would bring up the gun...she would just wince and wait till the shot was over....would get tired so ended up getting carried back to the truck in my game bag.

    Lab just hunted with her nose and sneak to flush birds run down cripples , a retrieve them.

    I really still miss my "team" (like I do all my dogs)......we got a lot of birds, covered a lot of ground and enjoyed the hunt.
    There were times I hunted with a broom stick...they didn't care ....the hunt was the best part,.... fresh air, friends, dogs, rain, mud.....chilli and beers after.

    Feeling a bit nostalgic this evening...got back from a funeral of another hunting partner, Wally 87...the father of friends we all hunted together.
    Ducks, geese ,deer, fish....camp stories.... and even an owl story.
    RIP Wally...


    BTW how does a dog eat a Mora #1....and not get cut...

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    Hahahaha, I didn't see the pic before. See, that's just proof. They know exactly what they're doing. The afford mentioned cocker. When he was just a pup, I came home to exactly the last couple of chapters I hadn't read yet, being eaten by him. The beating commenced. He squirrled away and hide under a table. Oh no, we ain't done yet, so I stick my arm under to grab him for round two. I pull back just this side of a bloody stub. At this point, my now long since first ex intervenes just as I'm diving head first under the table to end this blood fued. After that me and little Sammy were inseperable. I still have no idea how that book ended. Don't even get me started on those ll bean and citori types.

  8. #88

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    I consider a dog to be portable food, some of which can feed themselves, or at least, help me feed me and mine, and help hold down the rodent population. I think I remember feeling a bit guilty when I killed my first rabbit, age 7 or so, but not since. Some people just lack the zest for life.

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    Senior Member WalkingTree's Avatar
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    Ok, I'll get a bit serious and philosophical here.
    How do you lose the guilt of hunting?
    You lose the guilt by deciding to not live anymore. By dying. Because that's the only way. And even that's wrong, because you'll deprive all the critters that make up your human organism of life...and the majority of you is not you. Other species which are a part of your body that you'll never get rid of and need anyway...outnumber you. There are more of their cells in your body than yours. The majority of DNA in your body is not your own.

    Like so many other things wherein the whole approach of thinking is wrong, it's forgetting that death is part of life. Death or killing isn't intrinsically "bad" - it's not about whether or not you kill, but instead why you kill. And often how as well. That's it. End of story. That simple. All else follows from this.

    A vegetarian mindset has a flaw at it's foundation. Plants are living things as much as animals are living things. I've heard some form of "at least" I'm doing something (minimal)...by killing a plant versus an animal. Or some such...can't express it properly at the moment. But it doesn't quite validate the stance. How is it minimal...how is it a "least of evils?"

    I have this idea that the real problem here is a kind of "animal chauvinism" - We can relate to an animal's loss and suffering, but not a plant's. However, that can't equate to killing an animal being "worse" than killing a plant.

    An argument there is that an animal has a central nervous system, and some degree of integrated experience...consciousness. Hence the ability to experience suffering. But I still think the jury would be out on this one. There's a whole lot more going on with biological chemistry than that...isn't that simple. Intelligence and awareness doesn't work the way that is being assumed here - I'm pretty sure that what we know as animal-style experience is just one form of what exists at other scales and different levels of biological organization - existed before brains were invented by evolution. A weed in your lawn has it's own intelligence and awareness...just not like ours and not that which we can relate to as animals. I know for a fact that a plant can experience shock just when being transplanted, and I'm pretty sure that parts of a plant's structure are screaming in their own way when death arrives...but since we can't relate to it as animals, we feel as if we have some kind of clear conscience if we're vegetarians.

    So...hey...use the mesquite smoke and pass the mustard.

    Quote Originally Posted by BENESSE View Post
    So right. No matter the heartache of losing them, thinking you can't go through it again, it is so worth having them in your life for however long it turns out to be."
    We're all gonna die. You are gonna die someday, and so am I. And your dog and horse too. (Unless we're in some matrix or simulation and we've all been deceived by some devil, of course) Many people don't seem to realize this...rather, only know it in 'theory', but don't really face and accept their mortality in reality. So...it's not about the loss. That's gonna happen and can't be avoided. Instead, it's about having life when you have it. Cherish it...but not as if it's supposed to last forever, and not as if it's value is tainted or lessened by the fact that it will be over someday.

    At my funeral...or at my dog's funeral...I'd demand that we don't mourn someone's loss of me - it's not about their loss. That's weird. Or my loss of my dog. It instead should be about my life, or my dog's life - the fact that I or he/she even lived...the funeral should be a celebration that a life was even lived and experienced...if a mourning, a mourning that I (or my dog) didn't get more life. But not a mourning of someone else's loss of me (or of my dog).
    Last edited by WalkingTree; 09-18-2018 at 10:08 PM.
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    I read somewhere that we (humans) were given dominion over every living thing that creepeth upon the Earth (there is no guilt in that) The only thing we couldn't eat was one particular PLANT (this is where guilt comes to play).

    Alan

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    Senior Member WalkingTree's Avatar
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    Never heard of the animal of knowledge. The forbidden meat. Unless it's pork.

    Maybe the whole thing was about the knowledge of yum. The yum of meat. Of meat and plant together.

    It was the tree of knowledge of seasonings. Or it's wood smoke.
    Last edited by WalkingTree; 09-18-2018 at 10:51 PM.
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    Well, I'm sure there could be a huge debate about what it was all about, but the debate about what it wasn't about would be pretty short from a vegan, carnivore point of view. It wasn't about guilt of hunting or eating meat.

    Really, I have no problem with someone who doesn't want to eat meat. I won't try to make them. I'm not preparing separate meals for them either. AND most importantly, I'm not going to listen to them try to impose their views on me.

    LIfe sustains life. It's simple. Our bodies and metabolisms cannot extract the energy we need to live from pure mineral. So, until that day I'm going for the well rounded, guilt free diet. It often requires a steak knife to eat it.

    Alan

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    I never engage in which came first the chicken or the egg. I only know which one made it to my house last.

    Some guy said it's not what goes in your mouth that defiles you. It's what comes out of it.

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    My wife has a nephew and his wife that are fruitarians. Been that way for years. He's doing ok but she complains of fatigue, diarrhea, bloating, anemia, etc. He won't be far behind her. I would just love to say, " Uh. You only eat fruit. It might just be your diet." Duh. They are educated people. He once said to me that because our eyes look forward and not to the side we were meant to be herbivores...Huh? He got this deer in the headlight look on his face if he'd ever heard of a vegetarian owl or cat or lion. They didn't change their minds or diet. They are still young. When I was young I could eat cold pizza and a beer for breakfast, fried pork chop sandwich and beer for lunch, fried chicken and beer for dinner...for weeks and felt fine. Not anymore. It'll catch up to you eventually.

  15. #95

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    My late 1 cent:

    Don't lose the guilt. Don't get it in the first place.

    Everything dies, and everything gets eaten by something else, whether it be a predator, a worm, an insect, or a bacteria. Hunters kill pretty quickly and cleanly by nature's standards. Here in Arkansas, a couple hundred thousand deer are harvested every year. The starvation, disease, and death of the deer population, along with other animals that would be competing for the food, would be slow and horrible if the deer weren't thinned out by the quick kill of a hunter.

    Killing and eating an animal isn't cruel. Torturing, or having them fight for entertainment is, but not killing and eating. As the comedian Brad Stine said: "Honor their culture and eat them up!"
    "The more complex the mind, the greater the need for the simplicity of play." Capt. James T. Kirk

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    Quote Originally Posted by JohnLeePettimore View Post
    ... Hunters kill pretty quickly and cleanly by nature's standards. ...
    Nature shows always cut the filming after the animal is down. They don't show the pride of lions literally ripping some creature to pieces while it is still blinking. They'll do it to you and me too. I dare any of these bunny huggers to walk up on a cow that's been caught calving by coyotes and they've had their way with her for a few hours, and she's still alive and tell me that hunting is cruel. Nature is unbelievably cruel and brutal. A well placed bullet achieves the same goal a lot quicker and often without a whimper.

    Alan

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    Thanks alaska for the answer.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Charlejack View Post
    Thanks alaska for the answer.
    If you can't overcome this feeling, then you shouldn't go hunting. You must always be confident in your actions. Sometimes one mistake can cost you dozens of hours of waiting. So you'd better keep fishing if you're good at it. Or else overcome this feeling of guilt. If you can do it, then go ahead. I had a similar feeling before I tried spam, and then I gave up hunting all together and just stuck with spam.
    Last edited by crashdive123; 05-10-2021 at 05:36 AM. Reason: Idiot Spammer

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    The way I see it personally is that the animal was going to die anyway, whether from a predator or a car. At least in this case it'll get a good proper use and provide for the family or improve your quality of life. You can't do anything without sacrifice, but sometimes sacrifices are noble, even if their impact is small.

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    Quote Originally Posted by kaze View Post
    ..I have a strong sense of guilt when I kill a fury animal..
    In a starving post-apoc world you'd feel a lot more guilty if you let your wife and kids starve to death, so if you get the shot, take it..

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