As it has for the past few years, every January when the Virginia General Assembly meets, the issue of hunting with dogs has again poked its head up and caused some alarm among hunters and hunting advocates.

At a recent state game and inland fisheries board meeting, hunters, donning camouflage and blaze-orange hats, packed the room, set to protest what they thought was going to be a vote to potentially restrict dog hunting across the state.

No such vote ever came up, thankfully.

The board did hear a planned report on the impact of deer hunting with dogs.

I think that hunting with dogs is ethical. I think that hunting with dogs is a tradition that needs to be protected, and that takes awareness, understanding and compromise on both sides of the issue.

What I do think is unethical is the inhumane treatment of dogs, or any other animal for that matter. It’s unethical to deprive a dog nutrition until it successfully tracks a deer, raccoon, bear or any other hunted game. It’s also unethical to not keep hunting dogs healthy with vaccinations, to keep them in isolation or harsh weather for extended periods of time and to run them until they’re nearly dead. It’s unethical to own or manage hunting dogs, and, at the end of the day, not look for them come dusk, allowing them to roam over other’s property potentially causing harm for people and proprety alike.

Hunters who hunt with dogs must be held responsible for what their dogs do or don’t do, and their own actions, just as everyone else is.

And, just like everyone else, there’s a part of the dog hunting population that abuses their dogs, mistreats them and allows them to run days after a hunt, starving, making no attempt to find them, thinking that they’ll come home sooner or later.

That’s wrong. And it’s also wrong to assume that all hunters who use dogs practice this.

The first rule of the Virginia Hunting Dog Alliance’s hunting dog owner’s code of ethics states, “I will provide proper care for my dog, including food, water, medical care and shelter, and will firmly insist other hunting dog owners to the same.”

Don’t let one irresponsible hunter who uses dogs spoil the whole pack.

Jordan Miles is managing editor of The Farmville Herald. His email address is jordan.miles@farmvilleherald.com.