Dog Fighting vs. Deer Hunting

By: Robert Rodgers

The Michael Vick dog fighting situation has been a polarizing story in the news this summer. Many people are horrified and shocked by Vick’s association to dog fighting, which apparently, is not as uncommon as most people would like to believe. However, many have publicly supported Vick, including some of his fellow NFL players. One such player, Terrell Owens of the Dallas Cowboys, has described dog fighting as a “cultural thing,” saying that it is not much different than deer hunting. While I respect Mr. Owens’ opinion on the situation, I completely disagree with him. While I am not condoning hunting, as I do not hunt nor ever plan to hunt, I believe there are certainly fundamental differences between deer hunting and dog fighting.

First, while I acknowledge that not all hunters eat the deer they kill, many hunters do hunt for the purpose of eating. I happen to know first hand a hunter who hunts so he can put food on the table during the winter season. Wasn’t that the purpose of hunting in the first place? Didn’t the Native Americans who first roamed the Americas hunt for food? Dog fighting is done primarily for sport. Dog fights, as I’ve read, typically involve gambling and are attended for the thrill of it. Second, dog fighting is illegal and considered a felony; however, deer hunting has a season when it is legal to hunt deer. This is done to control the population of deer. The deer population sometimes needs to be checked, or else deer would freeze and starve during the winter. Also, deer may cause accidents in the winter when they cross major roads in search of scarce food. Dog fighting has no such benefit as there is not a need to control the dog population. Third, in our culture, dogs are domestic animals and deer are wild animals. While this may not mean much to some, dogs are considered pets while deer are considered wild animals. True, both are creatures in the world, but who would kill their pets? Lastly, when hunting, the goal is to kill the deer as quickly and painlessly as possible. While this goal is not always achieved, it is certainly better than the pain and suffering dogs experience as they are attempting to tear each other apart in dog fights. Dog fights can last hours and the dogs may suffer considerably before one of them eventually dies.

I think it is very clear that we should not consider dog fighting to be a similar practice to deer hunting. Dog fighting is illegal and viewed as a sport, and not a source of food, as the dog owners gamble and watch their dogs suffer and fight to the death. While Mr. Owens may not see the difference between dog fighting and deer hunting, I think there clearly are differences that make dog fighting a much more unacceptable practice in our cultural today.