2012.02.10
Ramirez: Blood sport is not a Virginia tradition
Virginia must ban fox penning
Dana Lynn Ramirez
Ramirez lives in Herndon and has worked with animal shelters and rescue groups for the last seven years.
For those of you wondering what a fox pen is and why the big fuss about them in Richmond (“Free the foxes,” commentary Feb. 1), allow me to summarize. Fox pens are fenced enclosures where owners keep hand-plucked or hand-raised foxes for the sole purpose of profit.
People pay to enter their dogs into competitions where they unleash hundreds of hunting dogs on these captive foxes so that the dogs can be judged on how well they chase prey.
Dana,
I am an animal lover, a hunter and a participant in what you call a cruel sport of field trialing my dogs in a fox preserve. I hate to break to you but there is absolutely nothing cruel or inhumane about fox preserves. I ask you to answer two simple questions
1. Have you ever been to a fox preserve?
2. Can you post these studies for the public to view that you speak of?
Oh one more thing in regards to the statement “A recent poll conducted by Mason-Dixon Polling & Research revealed that Virginia voters across all demographics overwhelmingly oppose the abuse of animals in fox pens by a more than an 8-to-1 margin, and a majority support legislation to ban the practice” It is all how you word a statement. I also oppose the abuse of animals… who would not agree with this statement! The TRUTH is that there is no abuse going on in fox preserves.
I ask that before anyone jumps on the bandwagon that you do a little research on these organizations that you support! Check out:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QJUiSjSw0Gc
Comment by Holly Stephens — February 10, 2012 @ 1:46 pm
LOL, before you believe their propaganda look at mine! Priceless.
Sorry, the HSUS cannot kill enough factory farms for me. Better than fish in a barrel fishing IMO. Factory farming made me become a vegetarian.
Comment by Sandi Saunders — February 10, 2012 @ 3:31 pm
HSUS and other animal rights groups are putting our sport out to be something it’s not. Rarely do the dogs ever catch a fox in the fox pen. The foxes have safe houses to get away from the dogs as well as Natural dens they have made through out the fox pen. The average fox pen is just over 200 acres imagine all the fence it takes to surround 200 acres. And some fox pens are as large as almost a 1,000 acres. Trees fall down on the fence during storms all the time and the foxes escape. Foxes also dig out and climb out of the pens too. Yes foxes climb trees. Foxes also dig tunnels in the ground to make dens so yes they can dig out of the fox pen as well. Some foxes die of natural causes. So you have to stock more game in the pens. 3,600 foxes over 3 years / 41 fox pens / 3 years = an average of 29 foxes per pen a year. Plus the more foxes you have in a fox pen it takes more pressure off the foxes already in the pen. If the fox pen is loaded with foxes the dogs don’t run the same fox for very long before they switch over to another one. I have been to fox pens many many times and seen the dogs running a grey fox and stumble onto a red fox track and switch over to a different fox. And if the dogs run the same fox a long period of time the chase usually ends because the fox escaped the dogs in a safe house or the fox goes up a tree or the fox outsmarts the dogs and the dogs loose the fox and the dogs go find another fox. I love my dogs. I love to watch them run and hear them run, I live for it. And my dogs love it and live for it too!!! Taking my dogs to the fox pen for them is like taking a kid to Chucky Cheese. Fox pens are a safe place for the dogs, you don’t have to worry about your dog getting hit by a car or bothering land owners. Why would you want to take that away from us. The funnest part is all these folks talking against fox pens have never been to one in their life and are assuming this and that must go on and really don’t have a clue. So what they have done is spread lies and inaccuracies about Fox Hound Training Preserves.
Comment by Chris — February 10, 2012 @ 3:38 pm
I am fairly certain that Chucky Cheese does not ever end in the death of anyone and it is certainly never the point, even if it manages to happen. The abuse of animals starts long before they get into a “fox pen” IMO. I hope one day someone answers for the abuse that an animal that mankind literally created has suffered for ever since, and I am fairly certain that will include the people who “train” and enjoy watching animals track and corner, tree or kill another. There is no “sport” in your sport sir.
Sending donation to HSUS now.
Comment by Sandi Saunders — February 10, 2012 @ 6:34 pm
it’s amazing how there are so many problems affecting human beings, and some of you are stuck on FOXES.
Comment by ian — February 15, 2012 @ 8:26 am