May 2006: Pet Advocate

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AB 2110: Two Views on Open Field Coursing

The Pet Advocate is a community forum where we explore the legal and social issues around people and pets living harmoniously. This month, we present viewpoints on California Assembly Bill 2110 from guest columnists Diane Allevato and Christie Keith. If you would like to respond to Pet Advocate or suggest a topic, please contact us at editors@fetchthepaper.com. Please note, the opinions expressed are those of the authors and not necessarily those of FETCH.

California State Assemblywoman Loni Hancock is sponsoring a bill (AB2110) that would outlaw open field coursing in the state of California. Open field coursing involves using dogs to hunt live prey such as jackrabbits. To help inform FETCH readers, we asked “Is there any place for the practice of open field coursing in our community? What should people know about open field coursing and the proposed legislation before they decide where they stand on this issue?”

Christie Keith

Some proponents of AB 2110 paint a picture that’s very different from the reality. They talk about us “training” our hounds to not just chase hares but to maul them. They describe field trials as if dogs take jackrabbits not in cold, wet fields on miles-long, brutally hard hikes over plowed furrows as hard as concrete, but in some sort of gladiatorial arena with spectators and wagering. They call hunting with hounds a “blood sport” and imply it’s an underground activity like dog or cock fighting. And they’re thus able to frame this debate as being about animal cruelty, when in fact, this is about hunting.

So let’s try a reality check. It’s both impossible and unnecessary for hunters to “train” sighthounds to chase hares, and no hunter trains or wants them to rip hares to shreds. In addition to the very natural respect all good hunters have for prey animals, that isn’t something you want to happen to your dinner. And field coursing is regulated by the California Department of Fish and Game just like all other forms of hunting, hunting license and all.

Competitive field coursing is not some kind of underground blood sport, but is exactly like hunting tests and trials for Retrievers, designed for the sole purpose of improving the breeds and preserving their abilities and skills.

Do prey animals die in field coursing? Yes, they sometimes do. If, after what can be hours of hard hiking, a jackrabbit is sighted by the hounds, one, two, or three of them are released to pursue it, usually for about a minute, often much less, and rarely for as long as three minutes. The jackrabbit (which is a hare, not a rabbit) is never brought to the area nor released from a cage, but hunted in its own natural environment, an area in which it has lived its entire life and that it knows well. For that reason, as well as its amazing speed, the jackrabbit usually escapes. When it doesn’t, it is almost always quickly dispatched with a single shake of the hound’s head. Anything else is the rarest of exceptions to the rule.

If that bothers you, consider this: The jackrabbit is a designated pest species in the state of California, routinely – and legally - poisoned and otherwise killed by farmers and ranchers. And if you eat commercially raised meats, the jackrabbit that dies in the jaws of a hound lives a better life and has a better death than the cow who died for that fast food burger you’re eating, or your leather shoes.

Field coursing is not a blood sport. It is hunting. If you have a problem with hunting, then let’s have that debate, openly and honestly, without loaded language and without lies. But realize that there is no hunter, no open field courser, no houndsperson, advocating training dogs to harass wildlife. This false argument is simply the sharp point of the wedge whose broad end is the eradication of all forms of hunting.

Christie Keith is a freelance writer and editor living in western Sonoma County. She is a member of the Scottish Deerhound Club of America and the Dog Writers Association of America.

Diane Allevato

Many Bay Area residents were horrified to watch wild jackrabbits being torn apart by greyhounds during an open-field coursing event in Solano County. Thanks to KGO-TV, this underground blood sport is underground no longer.

In open-field coursing, greyhounds are released in natural areas to chase jackrabbits as owners yell encouragement and judges award points for the elements of style, including the kill. The rabbit, of course, has the real interest in this bloody game: the game for his or her life. Too often, it ends with the hare screaming while being ripped apart in a canine tug-of-war.

Aficionados call it “hunting,” yet I don’t know a single sport hunter who could watch open-field coursing without being sickened. There is no clean kill nor use of the meat. There is, instead, a total disregard for the wild creature and excessive pleasure in the chase and kill. In a majority of states, most of which host many more hunters than California, open-field coursing is illegal. Assemblymember Hancock’s legislation is neither innovative nor progressive; it simply closes a bloody loophole in current humane legislation.

Keep in mind that pending legislation is not about canine behavior, but about human behavior. Our dogs are no longer natural predators. Because greyhounds don’t need to hunt for survival, the chase involved in open-field coursing is conducted under rules that do not occur in nature. A natural predator balances the expenditure of energy with the energy gain. If the predator does not catch its prey in a short space of time, it stops; in nature, about 80 percent of predator/prey chases are unsuccessful.

But because the dogs who participate in open-field coursing are well-fed pets and not natural hunters, chases can last longer than four minutes. _ us, even the rabbits not caught and killed on the spot are still likely to die from “capture myopathy,” or damage to the tissues of the heart caused by the fear and exertion.

Also important, who wants to live next door to a greyhound who has been trained and encouraged to kill live prey, thus raising the risk to neighborhood cats, small dogs and wildlife?

There is a sporting alternative to this carnage — lure coursing in which dogs chase a lure, not a live animal. Assemblymember Hancock introduced AB 2110 because open-field coursing doesn’t belong in California — or anywhere, for that matter.

A lawyer in a former life, Diane Allevato, the Executive Director of the Marin Humane Society, lives in Novato with two Border Collies and a veterinarian.