The following AJC article calls for letters against animal cruelty as human entertainment. The paper takes letters at http://www.ajc.com/opinion/content/opinion/letters/sendletter.html
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
July 30, 2006 Sunday
METRO NEWS; Pg. 1C
Hog-dog events stir controversy;
Handlers: No animals mistreated
MARK DAVIS; Staff
Terry Lee wants you to understand: He is not a cruel man.
Take his word for it, or check with Woodrow, Sissy, Cottonmouth, Katie, Fat Dog, Larry, Alice, Spud, Sharlene, Goldie and Riley. With the exception of Sissy, who is an American bulldog, they're hounds, hog dogs to the bone.
They love to chase a hog through the forested flatlands near Folkston, cornering it until the humans arrive to bring it home alive.
The dogs are not mistreated, says Lee. Nor are his hogs, not even when he puts them in a pen with his dogs and invites the paying public to watch what happens.
Lee is the owner of Southern Heritage Bay Pen of Folkston, just a cry from the Florida state line. It's a modest place, an arena flanked by some homemade bleachers with room for a couple hundred people. Others can back their trucks to the fence and sit on tailgates, or unfold a chair, to have a good view.
What happens, he says, "is kind of like a sheep dog competition."
A wild hog, whose tusks have been cut to avoid goring a dog, is ushered through a gate into the arena. A moment later, a dog enters the ring. His job: hold the hog cornered, at bay, for two minutes. Three judges grade the dog, deleting points for mistakes --- whether the dog breaks eye contact with the hog, for example.
If the dog bites the hog? "Disqualified," Lee said without hesitation. Biting would make it a hog-dog rodeo, he said, and "you can't have that."
Or can you?
Georgia is the only Southern state whose laws do not specifically ban hog-dog rodeos; its laws generally forbid animal fighting.
In Georgia, you can pit dog vs.hog so long as you abide by certain rules --- chief among them a prohibition against biting. The state even issues permits for such encounters, called "baying pen events."
The two spectacles --- baying pen events and hog-dog rodeos --- have some traits in common. Both feature wild hogs held in pens and set upon by dogs.
But the dog of choice in hog-dog rodeos is a pit bull. Rodeo dogs are taught to bite and hold. In baying events, hounds or herding dogs are popular. Dogs in baying pens are trained to stay close to a hog, but not bite it. Fans of the bay-pen encounters say neither animal is injured if the match is staged correctly. The state's current animal-cruelty statutes, they say, are sufficient to look after the four-legged participants.
Opponents say that's nonsense --- that, by the very nature of the contests, an animal is running a good chance of injury whenever it's ushered into a pen. They want Georgia lawmakers to follow the lead of legislatures in Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, North and South Carolina, which in recent years have passed laws spelling out penalties for hog-dog rodeos.
"People aren't going to pay money to watch a dog corner a pig," said state Sen. Chip Rogers (R-Woodstock), who led a failed effort to revise the law in the Legislature's last session. "They want to see some action. They want to see some blood."
He's been building support for a bill banning hog-dog rodeos that he plans to introduce when lawmakers convene in Atlanta again.
That worries some hunting enthusiasts, who warn that if hog-dog encounters are regulated too closely, hunting with dogs could be legislated out of existence.
"It's kind of a poor area down here; you don't have all the big jobs here like you do in Atlanta," said Lee, 49, who has hunted hogs all his life. "It [hunting] puts meat on the table."
Baying permits
The state Department of Agriculture issues permits for baying pen competitions to watch for any outbreak of diseases that wild hogs might carry. Since January 2005, it has issued permits for 15 events.
Nearly all permit applicants live hours south of Atlanta, in spots such as Ludowici in Long County, southwest of Savannah. A place where two U.S. highways cross, Ludowici is a famed former speed trap, where, in the days before interstates, police targeted unwary travelers. These days, it's the home of the Wildhog Baying Contest, where proprietor Clifton Ray last December hosted a two-day, state-approved gathering of hogs, dogs and people.
It was a clean event, said Ray; no hogs got hurt. Instead, spectators witnessed one animal's finesse against another's defiance as dog bayed at hog.
The contest, he said, "takes all the blood and guts out of the rodeos."
Ray, 59, doesn't like the hog-dog rodeos, which he considers barbaric. "I don't know of anybody doing them, and if I did, I would turn (them) in," he said.
He also doesn't like the prospect of some law telling him what he can, and cannot do, with his dogs.
Hog hunting: a necessity
The North American wild hog is one tough animal --- smart, fast, capable of eating almost anything. Hunters say they're so cunning that hogs soon alter their habits when one in their herd is hunted and killed --- changing locations, for example, or switching to nighttime feedings.
Wild hogs are all over the state, from the Low Country to the mountains. They're a part of the political, as well as physical, landscape: Every year, lobbyists and lawmakers come together in South Georgia for the Wild Hog Supper that precedes the legislative session.
Hog hunting came about from necessity, says Parker Barrett of Jefferson.
Barrett has a wildlife biology degree from the University of Georgia and has been tracking and hunting hogs since moving here six years ago from Gurnee, Ill. He's learned some history in that time.
Serve up a slice of hog meat, said Barrett, and you're also serving up a slice of rural history.
Years ago, farmers would release their pigs in the spring, letting them forage in the woods until autumn. As cooler breezes moved across the land, the farmer would whistle up his dogs and head into the forest to corral his herd. Then he'd feed them corn for a couple of months until their meat was no longer gamy tasting. Then he'd slaughter them in cold weather.
But not all the hogs were caught, and they joined herds of other wild swine, adding to the population and its gene pool. Hogs, Barrett said, have flourished.
"This is a tradition that has gone on for years," said Barrett, whose favorite dog, Hooch, is a 78-pound American bulldog. "It's a tradition I'm glad to carry on."
But some say tradition has nothing to do with the hog-dog rodeos.
The competitions reached their popularity in the early part of this decade, then seemingly vanished about a year ago --- due, in no small part, to a series of regional and national undercover TV reports that captured the blood and mayhem of hog-dog rodeos at remote locations in the South.
"The catch competitions have gone very underground now," said John Goodwin, who is the deputy manager of animal-fighting issues for the Humane Society of the United States.
They no longer exist, said Mary Luther, president of the International Catch Dog Association of Fort Lawn, S.C. She blames the Humane Society, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals and other animal-rights organizations for killing the competitions.
"This was a way of life for us," said Luther. "They've totally destroyed us."
Lawyer: No contact?
Lawyer Claudine Wilkins has no sympathy for Luther. An Alpharetta resident, she's a lawyer and co-founder of the nonprofit Georgia Legal Professionals for Animals. Founded three years ago, the organization tracks animal-cruelty issues and their enforcement.
Wilkins, a former Cobb prosecutor, acknowledges that any animal-cruelty bill probably will have to allow baying contests if it wants to get through the Legislature.
She wonders about the people who sponsor the contests. "It is highly unlikely that you can trust people who are getting these permits not to let the dog contact the hog," she said.
Such talk offends Mark Banister of Hartwell. In January, he put on the Hickory Crossing Wild Boar Trials, charging $10 a head for two days' worth of hog and dog face-offs. Like other promoters, he feels that some critics of baying contests just don't understand: What gets country folks' blood racing may not be the same thing that city people like.
He recalled a contest last year, which People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals protested. PETA is a frequent and ardent critic of the baying contests.
"When PETA protested, that was the best advertisement I ever had," Banister said. He chuckled at the memory. "I thought about sending them a thank-you card."
Lee, back at Southern Heritage Bay Pen in Folkston, said no one gets rich off the contests. In his last event, held more than a year ago, he charged $6 a head admission, and $40-per-dog entry fee. He pocketed a little over $3,000, Lee said.
"It helps pay the light bill," he said.
He may put on another contest but is planning to wait until another spectacle --- one taking place under a golden dome, featuring a pack of lawmakers --- is done.
(END OF AJC ARTICLE)
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Date: Sun Jul 30 17:27:48 2006
