Around sunrise this morning I opened the front door to let some cats out, and was surprised to find Nina the dog wanting IN. Except during thunderstorms or extreme cold, Nina, who is part chow and conscientious protector of the household and all of its occupants, never wants in. So in she came, even though just a few minutes later she and the other two dogs, Cecil and Xena, would be following me out to the front porch (front porches that face the sunrise are the world’s best places for morning cups of coffee).
Not long after we got out there, I heard distant gunfire. First day of deer season for rifles. Which, of course, explained why Nina wanted in. None of my current or former dogs are or have been fans of gunfire, or specifically, the sounds of it. And it was coming from all directions--east by the river and up on Pizz Ridge, from farther south along the river, from woods and fields to the north and west. It was intermittent, of course, not like a battle or even like riot police firing tear gas and rubber bullets at largely peaceful demonstrators, but every few minutes as we walked around the yard, we would hear a shot or two “ring out,” as they say.
All of it was far enough away that I didn’t worry about random stray bullets accidentally finding us out there, like in a CSI episode, and I know, having grown up in a family of them, that the majority of hunters adhere strictly to basic gun safety rules: For instance, never fire in the direction of a house; never, in fact, fire if you don’t have a pretty good idea of where the bullet is likely to land if you miss your target--hillsides are good backdrops, for instance, or a thick stand of trees. If your target stands between you and a highway or a house, you find a better angle on it.
I am not a hunter, in fact haven’t hunted in over 40 years, but, as I said, I grew up in a family of them, and a brother, at least two nieces and a great-nephew, are still avid hunters. The great-nephew, now age 12, got his first deer last season, I think, a clean shot at 300 yards (length of three football fields laid end-to-end). In my distant youth I might have been able to make that shot--heck, I was top marksman in my company in army basic training, back in the proverbial day, once earning myself a ride back to camp from the firing range after hitting 80 of 80 popup targets. I do know the skill and single-minded concentration and sheer focus involved.
Done right, hunting is an admirable sport, and, while I hate the fact that it involves killing animals, I recognize that so, also, do many of my own meals, although obviously I am not personally killing them. Throw in a couple of other pieces of “trivia,” for instance that hunting license fees pay for a lot of wildlife conservation efforts, and that hunting helps keep the deer population down, and it’s hard to be “anti” hunting. As I’ve told my brother, I would rather he kill a deer with his rifle, than I do it with my car. Despite spending so much time with my “head in the clouds,” at heart I am a pragmatist.
Actually it was a cat that made me give up the sport forever. Her name was Smoky, because she was a fluffy, gray tiger-striped ball of fur when we first acquired her, I no longer remember how. She wasn’t the first cat I had adopted as “mine” (despite it being the “family’s” cat): There had been a Siamese I named “Chang,” and at least two black tomcats I named, for no particular reason, “Christopher.” She would be the last cat I would adopt for close to 30 years, though.
I was in the neighborhood of 11 or 12, and Smoky was maybe six months old when she crawled up under the hood of a car, one late fall or early winter day. Our cats were all outdoor cats--I’m not sure “housecats” even existed outside of cities, back then, although I suppose they did. Generally they did just fine, bedding down in hay in the barn, cuddling up together. But there was no warmth like the warmth beneath the hood of a car. Unlike today’s cars, which, when you open the hood it’s like opening a can of sardines, everything packed edge-to-edge, cars back then had almost enough room under the hood to set up a cot.
Cats, of course, loved that.
We were headed to town for something or other that day. Mom turned the key in the ignition, and immediately Smoky came careening out from beneath the car and went cart-wheeling across the driveway before coming down in a tiny furry heap. We assumed she was dead, and of course I was heartbroken, but for some reason we didn’t check on her at that moment. She wasn’t the first of our cats to come to a similar end, after all.
When we did get back a while later, I found that she was still breathing, barely, and grievously wounded. She needed to be “put out of her misery.” (Spare me the judging, please. That was then, and there, a wholly different time and place; I’m not sure the local vets even knew HOW to take care of small animals, and even if they did, most farm families didn’t have money lying around to invest in expensive surgeries, etc., for “utility” animals, no matter how much we might love them.)
As Smoky’s “owner,” the duty fell to me.
I went upstairs, got my .22 and a single bullet, then carried Smoky as gently as I could over to a corner of the field, lay her down as gently as I could, then put that single bullet through her head. And then I buried her.
I have not intentionally killed a living thing, aside from one rattlesnake and countless flies, since that day.
Anyway, I’ll be glad when hunting season is over, and so will my dogs.
But while I will never hunt again, at least for “game” (I may spend a lot of time hunting for a new job, or meaning or purpose in life, etc.), I will also never “judge” the sport. The fact that I do not, or can not do it, does not mean that I should take up arms against it.
Sometimes seeing both sides of an issue can suck.
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