John D
UKC Forum Member
Registered: Jun 2003
Location: Missouri
Posts: 4321 |
My predictions for 10 years from now.
At least half of those coonhunting now, will have quit. Myself included. it will mostly be due to the aggravation of trying to go. We're one more Obama away from losing a lot of existing freedoms. Just last week a sheriff deputy stopped me and told me I need to let "dispatch" know when I was going coonhunting.
Instead of 10 dogs at a nite hunt, there will be 2-5. One cast of reg. and one cast of NtCh's. Sometimes only one dog will be entered in a category. There will be a lot more "cheap" titles and when one dog shows up, sometimes it will be handed a win because the one guy that's running the club won't have a guide or judge available to put on him. Nobody will care about a Ntch, GrNtCh title or the Top Rep. lists since a lot of the dogs on it, got there cheaply.
Big money Comp. hunting will have moved to "pens" since most areas of the country will not be safe or legal for man or dog to turn loose, or laws prevent it. The fat cat mafia owners that have crept into money hunting can sit in an Air Conditioned lodge and watch the hunt on monitors. They can eat, drink, smoke and bet big money on their favorite dog without putting on a pair of boots or owning a pair of overalls. Not exactly coonhunting, like grandpa did it, is it?
Some areas of the country that have vast areas of public ground will still accomodate dogs that go hunting and tree real, live, wild coons. But these kind of dogs will no longer be what wins in any existing KC. It will be an odd collection of throwbacks and antiques that still do it this way.
Sorry to be so bleak, but might as well find a fork, because if it doesn't happen in 10 years, it definitely will in 20 or 30....
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