Husband is insistent on joining trail hunt tomorrow

[FairViewRosie25]

Not happy. I know they trail hunt but they still take dogs and have their fair share of the sabs.

And I wouldn’t be with a man who was ok with trail hunting or shooting , it’s something I find out pretty early on tbh because it wouldn’t align with my life

Are you being deliberately stupid? Where did I say anyone had to be upset? I simply pointed out that killing rats for fun, or as sport, is illegal. Don't you think it should be?

IMO most rodent control operatives just want to get the job done quickly and efficiently, which is fine with me.

So this is an interesting philosophical point. If I kill a rat for hygiene, that is good. But if I kill it for fun, that is - bad?

Kind of. Like if you actively enjoy seeing it die a terrible death you’re a bit of a weirdo regardless. If you’re doing it to stop your family from getting sick it’s understandable but still grim to laugh and joke about it imo.

Are you able to tell us whether you think it’s fun to see a fox get torn apart?

Modern civilised societies generally consider killing anything purely for fun to be 'bad'

Trail hunts do not involve chasing animals. HTH.

Demonising a whole industry because of the unlawful or inadvertent actions of a few is not ok.

Chicken shops don't kill chickens at all. And before you go on to talk about the people who do kill them, of course you are well aware that there is no valid comparison between hunting foxes with dogs and livestock farming.

I do not find this hypothetical being "torn to shreds" of foxes entertaining. Because luckily, that is not what a trail hunt does.

What I am keen to try and find out is the difference between cats killing literally millions of birds each year for sport, the concept of hounds being animals of human use (like cows or sheep), and killing rats. Because apparently how you feel about it makes all the difference.

Stop being disingenuous. Even you have acknowledged on this thread that the process regularly does involve more than a few animals being chased and killed, to say nothing of the other factors such as trespass, terrorising other animals, etc etc.

You know the difference, having had it pointed out more than once on this thread, but you are resolutely ignoring it. What cats do and what humans do is not comparable.

Adding 'HTH' to a post doesn't give one a moral high ground, however satisfying it might feel to type.

I again suggest that the rest of the "industry" should have taken collective responsibility for stamping out illegality over the last 22 years if they were so keen to protect trail hunts. But they did not, so Enter Consequences [stage left]

Yes actually many of them do, as trail hunting is used as a smokescreen. This is why trail hunting is due to be banned.

It does happen in trail hunts though. One of the key reasons people are keen to ban it. So let’s say it did happen, and there’s a high probability that it could, would you be ok with it?

I and many other posters have answered your cat question/comparison at length. So it would be interesting to get an honest answer from you too.

Sheep tend to have their throats ripped out by pet dogs or been driven over cliffs to their deaths - it happens frequently here.

I didn’t suggest you gave a dog but are you equally upset about the vast number of farm animals killed through incompetence or ignorance from dog owners as well as the 61confirmed foxes killed by hunts?

Why ask the question? Do you think killing animals for fun is good?

It is, though. Cats hunt for fun, so do humans.

We've just legislated it more.

This is an interesting debate. Pet cats kill millions of birds in the UK every year - often baby ones who can’t fly yet. Pet cats are mostly owned for pleasure. If they weren’t wanted, they wouldn’t be bred and so wouldn’t exist, and the wild bird population would be much healthier.

So as an owner of a cat (which is allowed outside) you do have to accept that baby birds are being killed for your pleasure, albeit indirectly You don’t see it (mostly) and I’m sure most pet owners would rather their cats didn’t kill. But they’ve still made a decision that will (probably) result in multiple wild creatures being pointlessly killed.

It’s similar to the meat eating debate. Most of us, by our choices, show ourselves to be perfectly happy for animals to suffer for our pleasure. We’d just rather not see it. We make ourselves feel better by judging people who do choose to see it.

But what about if you kill a rat for hygiene and are pleased or even happy once it's finally been done because say it's been a problem for a while?

Why not? Eating is fun. Do you eat animals? Have they been killed for you?

You keep quoting these vast numbers without answering the question where you're getting your statistics from.

Having a reasonable belief that a dog has attacked or is about to attack farm animals is a good defence to killing them. It's not as if society condones it whilst objecting to hunting.

Trail hunts do hunt animals.

I wonder what the pro hunting brigade make of bull fighting, dog fighting etc? All good wholesome fun?

Killing animals for fun is generally regarded as a potential sign of psychopathy.

Exactly. You have expressed it more eloquently that I have been.

The most horrific animal killing I have seen recently was a local pet cat running into and up a bush outside our kitchen, grabbing a baby bird, and running off with it. The adult birds went nuts. But the baby was gone, dragged away by somebody's Tiddles. Who would no doubt produce it for his human owners as some sort of offering.

It isn’t just about seeing it though is it, it’s about revelling in it. Creating a whole sport and industry out of something barbaric and cruel.

Nature is cruel. The way cats torment birds and mice is cruel. I’m not sure how logical your ‘if people didn’t have them as pets they’d not exist’ point is - surely we’d just be left with a load of feral cats causing more damage to wildlife. But I get your point.

However the best example I can think of is if a cat owner trained their cat to do this or stood outside laughing and cheering as their pet cat decimated a birds nest or whatever.

People who partake in it clearly do so for the thrill of it and think nothing of damaging wildlife, trespassing and subjecting animals to a horrific death. They actively enjoy it. That’s what I can’t get my head around.

She is unable to answer a very direct question that I have asked so my assumption is yes, she does think it’s good.