HollyHats - 6:57 pm on Oct 1, 2002 (gmt 0)

Korkus-
I can relate to your animal situation. I am from West Virginia (i know, i know...) Anyway, I grew up in a very small country community, right in the middle of a mountain called "Turkey Knob. To get to our house, you had to drive down this small backroad and everyone..and I mean everyone would drop off their unwanted pets. From kittens to grown dogs to even turtles I believe. I had two older sisters and we were all suckers for a lost pet. My mom was never much of an animal lover, but she'd take them in and say to us "Now, you know you are responsible for this one" Yeah, right.
My dad hunted, so we always had hunting animals for racoons and rabbits. He always kept Blueticks for hunting the racoons and we ALWAYS fed them scraps. (Mainly because we didn't have garbage pickup and you had to do something with your scraps anyway) If you left them in a bag outside, usually Smokey the Bear would tear into it at night.
If you start your animals on eating scraps, they will usually complain if you give them anything else.