Why? It didn't work last time.
Foxhounds uninvited appearance
- Thread starter Rhodesianjess
- Start date
foxdropper
Well-Known Member
Hounds are peer lead .That is to say they follow the lead hounds .Whatever they hunt the rest will speak on .
Thats how it should work but headstrong young hounds and a pack that isn’t under control will push the boundary if left to do so .It’s the whips job to keep hounds on trail and stop rioting .It’s the huntsman s job to find and draw cover and to expect whips to do their job .
Foxhunting has been going on for so long that the scent of a fox is ,should be ingrained into a hounds make up .
This rioting on deer is a huge failing by the whips ,not on the day but in general ,should never happen in the first place .
As you say the rioting on deer should never happen or be allowed. Sometimes in most packs young hounds would riot on hares but were always castigated and brought back into line by the whip. The large woods SW of Coventry were full of Munties 60 years ago but I never saw fox hounds hunt one or even look at one, but then that was a good pack. We occasionally used to hunt a fox or with the Harehounds but generally only a couple of places when asked by farmers who stood with guns around the cover, but again that was 50-60 years ago.
Rhodesianjess
Well-Known Member
I was keepering in Rutland at the time of the countryside marches, Cottesmore country. I , with my then employer, organised two minibuses to attend. My beaters and I went,most of us shot and fished, some following the hounds too.
When the marches against the handgun ban were held, I contacted the master to see if he would reciprocate. His answer was,we don't use handguns so we're not interested.
So much for sticking together.
foxdropper
Well-Known Member
Regardless of whether the whip rode into the wood ,he would known they killed ,were killing .If it’s an unwelcome place or too thick cover to ride whips dismount .In the old days it’s the whips job to deal with a killed fox .
Im guessing all dressed hunt staff knew hounds had killed but the fact they were off piste stopped a whip from looking into it .
Im guessing all dressed hunt staff knew hounds had killed but the fact they were off piste stopped a whip from looking into it .
Bo Diddley
Well-Known Member
No, it didn't work agreed, but we had a Labour government hell-bent on fulfilling along standing promise to its members, and we were far too gentlemanly in our timings on the Marches, if I remember correctly the 1st one was midweek which brought parts of London to a standstill & really brought it to the attention of Londoners we met on the tube, all the others were on the weekends so as not to cause as many problems at the behest of the Met police. But that's not to say it won't/cant work to slow what's happening in the future, you've got to remain optimistic and keep standing together!
This thread is becoming a bit like the ones involving car drivers and cyclists, in that some seem to think that shooters and followers of hounds are mutually exclusive groups. They are not. I know many people who follow hounds who also shoot. They protested over the handgun ban, and are protesting over the move to lead.
Just like there are good hunts and bad hunts, there are good keepers and bad keepers, good shoots and bad shoots, good stalkers and bad stalkers, etc.
Those who tar all with the same brush because of the one or two bad’uns are doing the antis job for them.
Just like there are good hunts and bad hunts, there are good keepers and bad keepers, good shoots and bad shoots, good stalkers and bad stalkers, etc.
Those who tar all with the same brush because of the one or two bad’uns are doing the antis job for them.
Bo Diddley
Well-Known Member
I can see I'm wishing on a dream with everyone standing together. I was a pistol shooter at the same time at our local club, and to be brutally honest some of the things that went on after hours at that club belonged to the wild-west days, it attracted a few oddballs as well
I’ll reply more fully later, but can I just say for now that you’ve asked some excellent questions. Wish you lived closer and could have come to the Countryside Day our local hunt organise, as the huntsman (just retired) would have loved to answer these type of questions!
I can’t claim any similar expertise, but here are my quick thoughts.
Regarding your last point, hunt stud books go back centuries, and hound breeding is much like racehorse breeding. Different packs of hounds often select bloodlines for different reasons - speed, stamina, scenting ability, conformation and steadiness being just five. So the hounds we currently see are still the result of genetics going back centuries, and hunting ability is innate in the breed, much the same way as in labradors, spaniels, etc.
More later, but off to Beaters Day now!
Rhodesianjess
Well-Known Member
Willie_Gunn, wishes for a great day, straight barrels and a superb craic with the lads
You are certainly correct there Willie, I believe the "Stud Book" at the Fitzwilliam kennels goes back to the mid 1700's. No wonder they don't look at deer.
Thank you - I’ll be beating for the Beaters!Willie_Gunn, wishes for a great day, straight barrels and a superb craic with the lads
Keep in line
Heym SR20
Well-Known Member
Oscar Wilde summed it up very nicely
“The unspeakable in pursuit of the uneatable!”
Well, as I've said, I fully support hunting in principle and I'd march alongside anyone to defend the countryside. But that doesn't mean turning a blind eye to irresponsible practice and abuse. You can support the continuation of an activity while subjecting the practitioners to critical scrutiny and demand high standards of conduct from them. In fact, it's important that you do if your defence is to have any credibility.
I do remember as I attended, I also remember all the anti shooting placards being carried by the hunts, "I don't want to die of gangrene! Don't shoot me, Hunt me" for example, as they have proven time and time again, the biggest threat to fox hunting is fox hunters
Now back from Beater's Day!
The answer to your first question as to whether a huntsman would know that hounds had killed a deer is almost certainly "Yes". A good huntsman knows his hounds, to the point where he/she can distinguish the voice of one particular hound compared to that of any of the others. This is vital for the huntsman, as different hounds might speak under different conditions. Some hounds might speak when the scent is near the ground, others when it is some way off the ground - some when conditions are dry, others when it's wet or misty. Some hounds might be "true" - i.e. only speak when they are on a particular scent. Those are the ones that the huntsman will encourage other hounds to follow.
Keep in mind that a huntsman might have 20 to 30 couple of hounds (40-60 individual hounds) out at any given day. I'd be hard pushed to recognise any of my four dogs individual barks, but a good huntsman will know each hound's bark like you or I would recognise different people's voices! To see the relationship between a good huntsman and his hounds really is one of the fascinations of hunting. It is often called the "invisible thread", as hounds and the huntsman seem to have an innate ability to understand each other.
So yes, the huntsman would almost certainly know the difference between hounds worrying a fox as oppose to worrying a deer, regardless of whether they were with hounds or on the edge of the covert.
Turning to hounds hunting deer, as has been said by a number of other people, most huntsmen will train their hounds to ignore deer. This obviously makes a lot of sense, given that many coverts that hold foxes will also harbour deer. Hence you'll hear the huntsman or whipper-in shouting "ware haunch", and cracking the whip, if hounds start after a deer. Similarly "ware heel" (when hounds are running a heel line - back the way the fox came from, rather than the way the fox is going) and "ware riot" (if hounds are hunting something they're not meant to, like a hare). "Ware" is simply an abbreviated version of "Beware".
So hounds will know that they should ignore the scent of a deer should they encounter it. Dogs are estimated to have between 10,000 and 100,000 times the ability to distinguish between different scents than humans, so identifying the difference between a deer and a fox would be like a human distinguishing between, say, bacon cooking in the frying pan and new cut grass!#
I am not quite sure why you would think hounds are "not exactly the sharpest knifes in the dog world." My own personal experience of hounds (albeit beagles rather than foxhounds) would suggest they are as smart as any other dog breed, often more so. Back to a point in my earlier post, intelligence is just one characteristic that you might look for when breeding hounds. Moreover, a good huntsman may have different types of hounds in kennels for different types of day, different types of country, etc. Compared to a good kennel-huntsman, most dog breeders and pickers-up are only scratching the surface of deciding which dogs to breed from!
Your question on the hounds proclivity to chase deer based on their size is a good one, and I am not sure I can give any meaningful answer. I would expect different types of deer to have different scents, but I cannot really say whether one type is more attractive to a hound than another. I suppose most packs of staghounds or buckhounds were chasing red or fallow deer, but that was probably more to do with the deer that were popular in the respective countries than the scent characteritics of different deer species. It could be that the more recently introduced species are more likely to result in hounds rioting, given that whilst red, fallow and roe will have been around for centuries - and hence hounds will be more familiar with the characteristics of their particular scent - muntjac and CWD may be more unfamiliar to them. Who knows!
I hope the above makes sense? Others with more experience are more than welcome to correct me where I have got things wrong.
What I would say is that anyone who is fascinated either by how dogs hunt based on scent, or the culmination of the interaction between dogs and humans, could do a lot worse than spend time watching a huntsman and his hounds.
gerarddwatts
Well-Known Member
Good explanation.
We still use a pack of hounds to shift foxes to guns up here....all the woods we hunt WILL contain deer....and often sheep....a hound that wasted time hunting deer would get short shrift.
A story such as we've had about muntjac is a difficult one to understand....when I used to hunt down south the place was crawling with muntjac and fallow and there were few problems.
We still use a pack of hounds to shift foxes to guns up here....all the woods we hunt WILL contain deer....and often sheep....a hound that wasted time hunting deer would get short shrift.
A story such as we've had about muntjac is a difficult one to understand....when I used to hunt down south the place was crawling with muntjac and fallow and there were few problems.
foxdropper
Well-Known Member
Rioting on anything has everything to do with the whipper in(s).
