I grew up in NJ and now live in Maryland, never heard much about deer dogs until the last few years. I don't have an opinion as a result, but can see that it would be a fine line, you want the dogs lean and hungry and hardened so they chase the deer and don't give up, but it's hard to walk that line without starting to mistreat the animal. I'm hoping that if you look at the deer dog owners graph, the majority is plenty of people with working hounds that keep great care of their animals, but work them, and unfortunately there's people that mistreat them and people that think dogs shouldn't have jobs at all and should be on you bed on the opposite sides of the bell curve. I've never found one in the woods myself. If I did and it let me get my hands on it, id do the same with a dog I found in the city, check for a number and if none found, call the wife and say we have a new dog before actually dropping it off with local animal control