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Hold on a sec…. I cleared my cache (cookies, browser history, etc.) and it looks like it might be gone now.

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Norton says it is still there.

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Oh, and I’m running Internet Explorer 8.0.6001.18702. I bet the malware is fairly browser-specific.

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They can run a virus scan on the server that the web site is stored on.

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Call Customer Support at your hosting company.

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Four head should pull that just fine.

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Norton is still warning me about this page. I’ve been to some 25 other sites in the meanwhile and haven’t had any warnings about them. But if no one else’s antivirus software is complaining then I guess it isn’t an issue.

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I’m going to try flagging my own post to see if I can bring this to someone’s attention sooner rather than later.

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A little more experimenting and it seems that it is the DAP home page that is triggering it, rather than any of the forum pages or any of the “deeper” pages. Just the index.html page seems to be triggering it for me.

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It’s amazing what they will put up with when we ask them to. They are so sensitive, they can feel a gnat land on their hide. However, they will play-bite each other on the forelegs just for entertainment, or stand in a swarm of hornets if we demand.

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Jen, I found this an interesting read; it is titled “The Emergency Euthanasia of Horses”

http://www.vetmed.ucdavis.edu/vetext/inf-an/inf-an_emergeuth-horses.html

The part about the equine body’s reaction to massive blood loss was new to me. Makes sense after I thought about it some, but it wasn’t what I was expecting. Good to know ahead of time. Stay away from those thrashing legs and expect it to be pretty horrific. I take my horses up into the wilderness fairly often and I always seem to find plenty of time to think about the ways in which things can go terribly wrong, and what options would be available to me. Like you said, not pleasant to consider, but as stewards we must.

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When I do turkeys, I slit the jugular and carotid. The theory is that it produces nearly instant unconsciousness. They still move plenty, but supposedly nobody is home. I have had on-again off-again problems with low blood pressure my whole life. When I was a kid, I passed out a few times just by standing up. If the drop in blood pressure from standing up is enough to send my conscious mind away, it seems to me that rapid blood loss would do the same.

I prefer to shoot a horse. Even versus having a vet do it via injection. No, I don’t think I’ll be taking my coon spear to ol Dobbin.

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For myownself, the choice of using a spear had to do with it being 3AM, in the city limits – no discharging of firearms permitted. I was trying to make a dent in the raccoon population at a friend’s place. They have a medium-sized cat colony to keep the rodents at bay. The live trap only ever caught cats, regardless of what bait we used. Even if it was something they weren’t interested in eating, they’d climb in there for curiosity’s sake and set the thing off. The raccoons were very bold, however, and you could pretty much just sit there and wait for them to come in after the cat food, then run them into a corner and do them in. I pitchforked a couple, used a spear on a couple more. It was messy and not quick. I think I need to learn more about the optimal mechanics of a spearhead. It was very pointy, but I think that the sides were too dull.

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I can see what both Carl and Andy are saying, I think. I have seen plenty of people who did not grow up with an agricultural background who are unable to “do the deed”. Paralyzed by the thought of inflicting more pain than necessary in the process of killing an animal. Afraid that they will be unable to do it “quickly and cleanly”. They put so much weight on doing it as painlessly as possible that the threat of messing it up prevents them from doing it at all.

I think Andy might have been concerned that his choice of dispatching animals with a spear might have been seen as whimsical or frivolous, rather than a practical and ethical choice. Not because of what anyone here said, necessarily. A spear is just such an uncommon and archaic tool in this day of guns. I can sympathize – when I unloaded my burden to someone regarding the failed attempt at quickly dispatching a coon with a spear, I was met with an appalled and shocked response. As though I had been deliberately cruel in using a spear.

Having been a hunter and a husbander of livestock for all my days, I take a professional interest in dispatching any animal as “quickly and cleanly” as possible. I am always striving to do better in that department, just as with any other skill that I practice regularly. I was raised to value a quick kill. I guess you could call it a moral expectation. Stuff happens and sometimes things don’t go as planned; I try to learn from those times and avoid a repeat performance. Not just because it has the potential to damage the meat, but because I try not to inflict unnecessary harm. Nature is cruel, but I try not to be.

I don’t think Andy wasn’t encouraging anyone to not hone their skill. He just didn’t want anyone to think that he was just playing around by choosing to use a spear.

Now, if he starts using a trebuchet to dispatch chickens, THEN we might have cause for raised eyebrows.

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@Countymouse 35466 wrote:

Yeah, seriously, a spear. My spear is designed for killing boar (link below, but I paid less). It’s what I take with me when I check out “bumps in the night” that my dog is barking at. These critters tend to hide under and behind stuff so you can’t get a good swing at them. Getting a good angle for a spear is easy even in hiding places and again, you don’t have to get that close or cause the animal to panick and/or do something crazy. It also doesn’t blow holes in buildings, wake up the neighborhood, or cause you to loose your hearing like firing a rifle in a building will. It also makes a bigger hole.

http://www.coldsteel.com/boarspear.html

You could probably clamp a knife to a pole for the same effect…

I have had a couple of occasions to kill a raccoon with a spear. Each time it resulted in a great deal of anguished screaming on the part of the raccoon, when stealth and silence was what caused me to choose the spear over the .22 in the first place. Maybe I need better aim? I went for high in the torso, aiming to get the vitals. My spear lives behind the door.

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