Can My Foxhound's Aggression Be Curbed?

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Ask the Experts

Cathy's seven-year-old pet "mostly-foxhound"

Five-and-a-half years ago, Cathy Eising asked our experts how she could steady her two-year-old pet “mostly-foxhound” on deer and other riot, so she could walk him in the woods off lead. She evidently achieved some success, since she has contacted us with another challenging question. The foxhound is now a seven-year-old.

Cathy asks, “How can I prevent his aggression towards other dogs who are invited into our house by me with their owners? I would like to be able to have friends bring their dogs when visiting and not have fights.”

Looking at the Huntsman

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Norm Fine's Blog

No hunting all summer. The huntsman must be having himself a nice vacation, right? Wrong. There’s an old saying that “foxes are killed in kennel,” meaning that all the good work you see in the field during the hunting season is established during the off-season in the training of the young entry and in the making of the pack. Feed, care, routine, discipline, and exercise through the hot summer months all add up to performance in the field. Then there’s the whelping and care of the puppies who will be entered not this season, but the next. All told, summer is an exceedingly busy time for any huntsman who plans to field a high mettle pack of hounds and show good sport.

As the summer weeks slide by and the start of the informal season approaches, Foxhunting Life will have a look at the huntsman in the next few issues, including some of the legendary huntsmen of the past to see what they had to teach us about the handling of hounds in the field. Chances are, when the season comes alive, you will see your own huntsman employing similar techniques in the handling of his or her hounds in pursuit of the quarry.

The Tom Smith Cast

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Hounds

By Norman Fine

Hounds speak confidently in covert; the whipper-in on the far side lifts his cap to the sky; and hounds burst into the open in full cry.

Suddenly all of life is in motion. Your head fills with the sights and sounds of the chase—the cry of hounds, the huntsman’s horn, the thud of hooves, the wind in your ears. Bliss. Then it all goes quiet.

The pack fractures, hounds searching for the lost line. The huntsman gives them a chance to recover it on their own. He doesn’t want the line to go cold, nor does he wants hounds to lift their heads and look to him for help every time they are at fault. Hounds make their own swing. The huntsman weighs all the factors—wind, scenting conditions, time passing, landscape, how the foxes have run here in the past. He decides to make a cast.

The Dublin Horse Show: Pictures of my Memories

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Latest

Noel Mullins, lifelong foxhunter and sporting photo/journalist in Ireland, and a frequent contributor to Foxhunting Life, launches his new book at the Dublin Horse Show this week.

The Dublin Horse Show: Pictures of My Memories is packed with eight hundred images of the world-famous show, selected from more than ten years-worth of thousands of Mullins' show photographs as well as other historical images. Matthew Dempsey, past-president of the Royal Dublin Society (RDS) has written the Foreword.

First held in 1864, the Dublin Horse Show featured a “Leaping Competition” (as it was then known) in 1868. The first winner was Richard Flynn, a sheep farmer from County Roscommon, on his hunter Shaun Rhue. He shared a prize fund of £55 but sold the horse to Squire Conolly of Castletown House, the founder of the Kildare Foxhounds for £1,000. He jumped six feet one-and-one-half inches over the Stone Wall.

Metamora's Annual Stable Tour Raises Funds, Makes Friends

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Our Hunting World

By Norman Fine

People leave with, 'I never knew that!’ or, ‘So, you don’t shoot the fox!’

What a fine way to raise funds for the hunt and at the same time make friends for foxhunting!

“We keep the atmosphere relaxed and pleasant,” said Joe Maday, MFH, “and we try to offer visitors a variety, whether it’s a show stable, a driving stable, or a woman who raises Arabs and has foals and yearlings to show the children. We gain new hunt supporters for sure. People leave with, 'I never knew that!’ or, ‘So, you don’t shoot the fox!’ There’s something for everybody, even if it’s just a pretty drive in the country.”

Will Goodall and the Belvoir

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Hounds

By Norman Fine

Surely, one of the great foxhunting packs of Old English (or traditionally bred) foxhounds—as distinguished from the Modern English foxhound—is the Belvoir (pronounced “Beaver”) in the UK. The kennels are at Belvoir Castle and have always been the property of the Dukes of Rutland. The hunt dates from 1750, and, except for a twenty-seven year period in the 1800s, the Mastership has always been held by the reigning Duke of Rutland. The Belvoir kennels are still considered by many breeders to be their primary source of Old English bloodlines.

Will Goodall served as the Belvoir huntsman from 1842 to 1859. Goodall’s hunting methods greatly impressed Lord Henry Bentinck, one of the leading MFHs of the day. Captain Simon Clarke, MFH of the New Forest foxhounds (UK) tells us that Lord Henry hunted three horses a day, kept copious notes, compared the best of England’s huntsmen, and believed Will Goodall to be the premier huntsman in England.

When in 1864 Lord Henry sold his famous hound pack, he wrote a letter to the purchaser, Mr. Henry Chaplin, describing Will Goodall’s hunting methods. The information in the letter so impressed Mr. Chaplin that, some years after Lord Henry’s death, he had it published under the title, The Late Lord Henry Bentinck on Foxhounds: Goodall’s Practice.

"Goodall’s Practice,” says Captain Clarke, “is the best treatise on hunting hounds ever written.” The revered Master and hound breeder Isaac “Ikey” Bell, the single individual most responsible for the modern English foxhound, is said to have had Goodall’s Practice painted on the ceiling over his bathtub! If you watch while hunting this season, you may see and recognize some of these same practices being used by your own huntsman. Here’s an extract:

High Jinks With Pink Gin

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Humor

By Deirdre Hanna

Back in the late 1950s, Deirdre and her friend Sarah, both just nineteen, came to America from post-war Britain, where shortages still prevailed and ration books were in use. Sarah was to train horses and riders for Jamie Kreuz at Bryn Mawr Farms outside Philadelphia. Deirdre was to work for the Insurance Company of North America in Philadelphia and help Sarah on weekends. Their adventures discovering America, land of plenty, while struggling with a lively collection of foxhunting horses, timber horses, and show horses, were published in five parts on these pages and popularly received. (Use our Search function with the author’s name to find those stories.) What follows is a new installment revisiting “Pink Gin, The Beer Swilling Timber Horse.”

Illustration by Rosemary H. Coates

Sarah and I had not been long in the States when Pink Gin arrived at Bryn Mawr Farms. Billy, who mucked out for us, was, as usual, the first to find fault with him.

“He do get drunk, he do. Proper beer-swiller he be. And he eats eggs and molasses with all his feed. Lord, if only I could eat like that!”

Wearing Spurs Safely

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Norm Fine's Blog

For safety, spur strap buckle is centered on the ankle with the free end of strap pointed to the outside.When you are wearing spurs, where does the buckle of your spur strap fall? As the result of the concerned suggestion of James Wofford, Olympic veteran and articulate three-day coach, Foxhunting Life has changed its recommendation for the proper way to wear spurs. (Hunting Attire, Tack, and Appointments under the Resources drop-down menu on our website).

Wofford writes: “I (and others, George Morris, for one) want the buckle exactly centered on the rider’s ankle, thus the least likely to catch the branch of the stirrup in the event of a fall. For your consideration, I enclose photos of what I refer to as THE Lower Leg Position, meaning, in my opinion, correct in absolutely every aspect.”