The Virginia Department of Wildlife Resources received 201 hound hunting-related complaints in the first seven months of 2026, a slight increase compared to the same period last year, according to data from the agency’s law enforcement division.
The number of complaints has risen every year since at least 2023, and some lawmakers are reworking their approach to regulating the tradition with hopes of requiring a permit next year.
Almost 88% of the 201 complaints involved dogs running where they shouldn’t, typically across someone’s private property, according to state data.
Two dozen of the complaints alleged violations of state law, including seven instances of hunters using dogs outside the proper season and five cases in which hunters were accused of crossing onto private property to retrieve wayward dogs while carrying a gun or driving a vehicle. Hunters have the right to retrieve their dogs, but only while unarmed and on foot.
The number of complaints regarding hunting dogs has gone up every year since at least 2023, according to Virginia Conservation Police Maj. Ryan Shuler.
The department measures a year from a few days into January until the same time the following year in order to account for hunting season, which runs from mid-November to partway through the first week of January. Peak hound hunting season starts in mid-November, when the majority of complaints are typically lodged.
Between the 2023-24 and 2024-25 periods, complaints went up by about 43%. They rose another 19% the following year.
At the same time, the number of complaints alleging illegal activity has dropped each year, decreasing by nearly 17% between the 2023-24 and 2024-25 periods, and by more than 40% the following year.
The most complaints in 2026 have come out of Southside, including 33 from Halifax County, 13 in Lunenburg County and 10 in Prince Edward County.
Other hotspots include Hanover and its surrounding counties, as well as Mathews County and the peninsulas.
In a recent collection of public comments on new DWR fees and regulations — obtained by Cardinal News through a Freedom of Information Act request — more than a dozen people complained about hunting dogs disrupting their land, livestock and local ecosystems.
“Hunting dogs, whether [they hunt] deer or bear, are a significant burden on Va landowners (and bordering counties in NC),” wrote Dan Henderson of Dinwiddie. “As long as Va maintains its right-to-retrieve laws, anything that would potentially increase landowner interactions with dog owners is unsatisfactory and taking rights from one group paying property taxes to another who abuse the right-to-retrieve laws.”
“I believe that the practice of hunting with dogs is barbaric and should be banned. It is brutal to the dogs and wildlife as well,” wrote MaryAnn Kincaid of Beaverdam.
Lawmakers still working on requiring a permit
Virginia is one of fewer than half of the states where hound hunting is legal. The Old Dominion has yet to adopt limitations or a permitting system akin to those used in other southeastern states, according to a previous report by VCU Capital News Service.
Some Virginia lawmakers have been trying to regulate the sport for years.
Del. Marty Martinez, D-Loudon County, carried a bill in the 2026 General Assembly session to establish an additional, specific permit for using hunting dogs similar to those required for other unique privileges such as muzzleloading and elk hunting. The bill was continued to 2027 in the Senate Finance and Appropriations Committee.
Also this year, Sen. David Marsden, D-Fairfax County, proposed making it a class 3 misdemeanor to release hunting dogs on or within 15 feet of publicly owned or maintained roads. It was an effort to prevent dogs from running onto other people’s private property without permission, but the bill failed.
“Some of our new senators got 10 emails from their district, where they had a few rural people, and got nervous and didn’t want to do anything to upset people,” Marsden said.
Marsden argues that the lack of regulations pits landowners and hunters against each other. There is nothing to stop houndsmen from releasing their dogs nearby and letting them run uncontrolled onto other people’s property, he said.
“They attack people’s chickens, attack people’s pets. They crap all over the place, they make noise at dawn when you’re trying to sleep. Next thing you know you’ve got dogs tearing through your front yard and farm. It’s just rude and inappropriate,” Marsden said.
Marsden said he and Martinez are working on new legislation for 2027 to establish a permit that will not cost any additional fees. The two lawmakers pitched it to the Department of Wildlife Resources, which has come upon its own money troubles as of late.
“They said they’ll do their best to enforce it without any additional resources,” Marsden said.
Hunters want to keep oversight local
Kirby Burch of Powhatan argued the data from the Department of Wildlife Resources is not representative of the behavior of houndsmen because the alleged violations also include incidents of people stealing dogs or removing their collars. As the chief operating officer of the Virginia Hunting Dog Alliance, he said he hears of those cases happening about once a week.
Burch said creating more regulations or an extra permit would not solve Virginians’ problems with hound hunting.
“I don’t think the one-size-fits-all approach is the answer,” Burch said.
Burch and his fellow houndsmen have advocated for a “neighbor-to-neighbor” approach in which hunters and landowners form joint local committees, sponsored by their county sheriff, to hash out their problems.
That idea was suggested by the Department of Wildlife Resources and has since been taken up in 16 counties, according to Burch.
Robert Shackelford, president of the hunting alliance’s Essex chapter, and his family have been hunting with dogs for generations.
“I’ve got 17 hounds, and they’re probably my 17 best friends,” Shackelford said.
Shackelford said the King and Queen County Hunter and Landowner Alliance he is a member of has been effective at improving relations in his community.
“We’re all good friends now, a lot of it is just communication,” Shackelford said.
Shackelford fears requiring a permit could cause a domino effect of ramped-up regulations on hound hunting in Virginia.
Other states have adopted “diverse methods” to deal with similar conflicts, including “permits, acreage limitations for hunting with hounds and outright banning of hunting with hounds,” according to a 2024 report by the University of Virginia’s Institute for Engagement and Negotiation
“Sometimes there’s too much laws in this world, especially people from Fairfax writing laws that have no idea what they’re writing laws about,” Shackelford said.
As Shackelford put it, “the dog can’t read a posted sign.” He said he does not see an easy way of preventing dogs from running off course onto other people’s property, but hunters can be courteous about retrieving their dogs.
“There’s a polite way of doing it,” Shackelford said. “I could go up and knock on the door, introduce myself … the goal is to get in and out as quick as possible without disturbing anything.”
