Tame Whitetail

[BornBad]

Whitetails are exquisite in their grace and beauty, and under special conditions, where their nature and needs are understood, they can be tamed and kept as pets. It is definitely not a commitment to be taken lightly though. Whitetail deer live 20 years or more in captivity, and have many special needs...not only to be comfortable, but to simply survive.

It is important to realize that deer are prey animals, while dogs and cats for example are predators. Deer are more like birds and horses who make their way in the world by being constantly alert and ready to take flight at the least whiff of danger. A prey animal will only turn to fight a predator as a last and most unwelcome choice. The prey animals that live the longest are the ones with the keenest senses, reflexes, wariness, brains and physical fitness. Its flight response though is what powers the frightened deer that will, in blind terror, hurl itself into a solid object, off a precipice, into fencing or other damaging situation, and kill or injure itself.

A pet deer will, bit by bit, relinquish its profoundly wild instincts as it is tamed. An animal that is imprinted (using the word loosely) on humans will allow a person into its most intimate, personal space, and will allow very familiar physical contact. An animal that is merely hand-tame will allow closeness usually only to accept food or limited petting, and it would bolt off in a panic if you, for example, tried to hug it. Many wild animals' personal spaces shrink with familiarity. They might know that a particular dog never behaves in a predatory way, and so pay little attention to it, even allowing it into it's familiar personal space. A tolerant, pen raised deer might accept a distance of, say, 20 feet between itself and its caretaker, but have a stranger come along with the caretaker and the deer will blast off in a panic. Or, if the familiar person tries to close that 20 feet to 15 feet, the deer's flight response will kick in with full force. Finally, a completely wild animal will have its natural, unadulterated "flight distance". Just as humans have their own personal space that, if intruded upon, will make them feel crowded and alarmed, other species as well have their own typical distance that, if trespassed upon, will trigger flight. For the whitetail this distance is 200 feet, while for the pronghorn for example it is 500 feet.

Tame bucks though, because they are tame, can be killers. In the wild a buck has an intense need to preserve its own flight distance, and would not think of coming close to a human, and that is exactly what protects us. Once that need for distance is gone, the aggressive, rutting buck (even more so if a person happens to come between the buck and a doe he is courting) has no sense of needing to preserve its space, and that is when he becomes seriously dangerous.

I finally had to bully the poor buck with the tractor bucket...for quite a while...before he would concede the match and back off. If a fawn is picked up the wrong way, it will use it's pointed hooves, and twiggy little legs to connect with a power that would shock you...it will shred your clothing and cover you with welts, lacerations and bruises. Compare that to the large, thickly muscled hindquarters of an adult buck that he uses to drive forward his multiply pointed weapon. Keep in mind that a buck in rut, or to be safe ANY buck in hard horn is a crazed, hormone driven breeding machine. A large number of people are killed by their trusted tame deer each year because they do not understand the extremes in the nature of the normal breeding buck.

[Outdoorsfool]

There are a couple of passages in this that deeply disturb me, BB.

will allow a person into its most intimate, personal space, and will allow very familiar physical contact

An animal that is merely hand-tame will allow closeness usually only to accept food or limited petting, and it would bolt off in a panic if you, for example, tried to hug it.

In the future, please refrain from quoting from your copy of "Bestiality for Dummies".

[BornBad]

You got somptin against wang dang sweet doe tang ?