The Horsewoman: A Practical Guide to Side-Saddle Riding, 2nd. Ed.

by Alice M. Hayes

CHAPTER XVIII.
WALKING FOXHOUND PUPPIES.

I believe I am correct in stating that no woman who has ever hunted, professes any other feeling than that of ardent admiration for the hounds which provide her with sport; but I would like to see this admiration take, among hunting women, the more practical form of walking hunt puppies, in whose future well-being they should have a keen personal interest. There are two maiden ladies in Ireland, who, although they have never hunted, and are long past the age at which they are likely to do so, always, from sheer love of sport, walk a couple of foxhound puppies for their district hunt. We want, I think, more of this sporting Irish feeling among our sex, for I am sure that apart from all other considerations, a hunting woman would find more to interest her in the rearing and training of a foxhound puppy, whose career she could literally follow, than in spending money and time in clothing and nursing a useless pug or toy terrier. There is no more intelligent and charming companion for a woman than a young foxhound, who appears to be able to do everything but speak, and even that he can do in a mute way, for when he is greatly troubled, he cries like a human being, with real tears. I am thinking as I write of a young Cottesmore pup I was walking at Melton Mowbray who, when a friend accidentally trod on his foot, came yelping up to me for sympathy with big tears rolling down his face. When I picked up this heavy lump of dog and soothed him, he at once stopped his yelping and his tears like a child.

Mr. Otho Paget in his interesting book, Hunting, says, “The whole future success of your breeding hounds rests on being able to get good walks,” and in order to ensure such success, he advises generosity in the matter of prize giving at the annual puppy show and the luncheon on that occasion, to be “as smart and festive as you can make it.” Mr. Paget considers that the “ideal home for a puppy” is a farmhouse; but even if this statement were correct—which I greatly doubt, seeing the poverty of many farmers and the neglected state of their own domestic animals—few farmers walk foxhound puppies even in classic Leicestershire. When a large landowner, good sportsman and lover of hunting like the late Duke of Rutland, makes an agreement with his tenant-farmers, to walk puppies, the work is certain to be carried out in a give and take manner which will cement good feeling between both parties, and will promote sport; but the practice which obtains in some badly managed hunts of sending a whipper-in to dump down his cartload of puppies on any people who will consent to take them, is not only akin to cadging, but is also productive of many cases of neglect which ought to come before the notice of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. Instead of deputing servants to dispose of young hounds in this casual manner, the Master or his Secretary should approach the residents of the district, and either personally, or by writing, arrange with them to walk puppies, so that they may be prepared to receive their young charges. Also, the Master or Secretary should visit the puppies at walk occasionally, as such practical interest taken in their welfare, would tend to encourage the walker in her by no means easy task of rearing the youngsters.

Mr. Otho Paget’s advice as to prize giving and a sumptuous lunch hardly, I think, meets the requirements of the case. We can dismiss the lunch, as very few of my sex care for “smart and festive” feeding, and as far as the prizes go for their trouble and expense with the animals, what is the use of judging puppies six months after they have returned from walk? The poor, neglected, half-starved animal who goes back to kennels all skin and bone may, if he be a well-shaped hound, show up better at the time of judging, than those who were returned full of good food and in hard exercise, but who may have lost in condition by fretting, or by having to live on shorter rations than before. Some puppies, as I know from experience, have either died during the six months’ interval, or have been drafted to another pack. Therefore it would be far more satisfactory and encouraging to puppy walkers for the judging to be on a day fixed for them to take their young charges to the kennels. In bygone days when country squires lived on their land and their tenants were under contract to walk puppies, the present arrangement no doubt answered well enough, because it was to the tenant’s interest to do his best to please his landlord; but times have changed since then. The large majority of people who hunt nowadays, rent hunting boxes for the season, and take so little interest in country life that they fly off to town on the first appearance of frost, and are not seen again until the land is fit to be ridden over. When the season ends, they disappear till the following one. Few of them know any of the resident farmers or inhabitants of hunting centres even by sight, or want to know them. This snobbish exclusiveness is very harmful to the interests of hunting, because the farmers are under no obligation to them—quite the reverse—and a farmer can, if he likes, refuse to allow them to ride over his land. Therefore, when hunting people show farmers no civility, the agriculturists naturally do not care to go to the trouble and expense of walking hunt puppies, as several farmers have told me, unless they are given a better inducement to do so than present arrangements offer. Then again, in judging puppies returned from walk, supposing the judging takes place at once, as it should do, only the condition of the puppies, and not their “points” should be taken into consideration; for the walker usually has to take any puppies that are given to him, and as he does not breed them, he cannot be held responsible for any defects which may be in their make and shape. The hunt puppy-show ought to be a function entirely apart from the walkers’ show, and until this is done, the unfortunate puppies will continue to be dumped down on any stranger who will consent to take them.

I cannot help thinking that the great mortality which takes place every season among young hounds, might be considerably lessened if the various hunts were to send out with the puppies, for the benefit of inexperienced walkers, a pamphlet or card of printed instructions concerning their feeding and general management. They should also request the walker to report any case of sickness, and should at once despatch a competent veterinary surgeon to investigate such cases and prescribe for the young patients. The inexperienced puppy walker, in her anxiety to get her charges strong, often gorges them to repletion with raw meat even before they have got any permanent teeth, which is as absurd as feeding an infant on raw steak. We know not how young hounds contract distemper, but they cannot be prevented in their daily walks from eating offal, and if the germs of the disease are taken into their bodies in this way, the hound whose system has been weakened by “heating” and unsuitable food will seldom recover. I do not wish to pose as an authority on this subject and am simply giving, for the benefit of ladies who find themselves placed in a similar predicament, my experience, or rather, at this stage, inexperience, in walking a couple of Cottesmore pups. I tried very hard to save those pups, nursed them night and day, and had them in my room at night, but both died. One of them was slowly recovering, but was so weak that he could hardly stand, and I was recommended to give him some fresh meat cut up small. This food occasioned a relapse, and next day he was dead. I notice that Mr. Otho Paget in his book on Hunting recommends “a little raw fresh meat” for weakly pups, but possibly he would not advocate it for one getting over distemper. I attributed the death of my charges solely to improper feeding, and have since been successful in rearing others by feeding them at first on bread and milk, biscuits and gravy, scraps of cooked vegetables, and when meat has been given, I have taken care to see that it has been cooked. Even with the greatest attention to diet and exercise, that horror, distemper, has attacked them, but they have made a good recovery. At the time of writing I am walking a couple of Pytchley pups, which alas, will soon go to their permanent home. Both of them have had distemper, one in a very severe form, accompanied by an abscess in his throat, which prevented him from swallowing anything but beaten eggs and milk for several days. His portrait ([Fig. 141]) shows that he has now “grown into a hound,” and I am proud of him, for all of the Pytchley pups of the first, or spring batch, which were distributed in this village died of distemper with the exception of my couple. My pups must have contracted the disease from a neighbouring farmer’s dog who died of it in great agony with an abscess in his throat. Possibly the adoption of some kind of muzzle would prevent puppies from eating diseased matter.

My belief in the necessity of giving hounds cooked meat and rigorously abjuring it in a raw state, excited ridicule here, but when the good result of such “faddy” feeding was proved by the healthy condition of the animals, the unbelievers acknowledged themselves converted. Mills, in his Life of a Foxhound, tells us that Ringwood, who appears to have been a fine hound, was brought up solely on “sweet milk, meal and broth”; but I find that pups in hard exercise want a generous supply of cooked paunch as well as bones for the development of their teeth, and that if they are blown out with sloppy food, their internal arrangements become disorganized. Besides, a hound cannot gallop on meal alone. One of the greatest difficulties with which puppy walkers in small villages have to contend, is in obtaining an adequate supply of paunches and bones, for country butchers do not kill many animals in the week, as there is little sale for meat. The average villager purchases a joint for his “Sunday’s dinner,” which either lasts the whole week, or is supplemented by scraps of meat, or even a “bone pie”! An ox paunch is of course dressed and sold as tripe, all sorts of pork scraps are made up into brawn, mutton ditto into “faggots,” so that there is very little left for the foxhound puppies. During the hot summer months it is best to give pups very little cooked meat, but plenty of cooked vegetables, biscuit, house scraps of bread, &c., and in cold weather the first meal of the day should, if possible, be given warm, or mixed with warm milk, for when young animals are cold and hungry, it is a good thing to warm their little insides. All meat should be given cut up. When feeding hounds on remains of fish, care should be taken to remove large bones, which are very apt to choke them. If puppies are shut up at night in a barn or loose box, their abode should be cleaned out every morning, and any soiled straw removed. Attention should be paid to the thawing of their drinking water during severe weather. After they have got their teeth and begin to snarl over their bones, it is best to feed them in separate tins, or the stronger and greedier of the two will get far more than his fair share, even if he allows his pal to have any at all. I have found ordinary large sized baking tins useful for feeding purposes, as crockery is liable to get smashed. It is a good plan to have a system of regular feeding morning and evening; for puppies, like children, thrive better on regular meals than when they are “picking and nipping” all day. A constant supply of fresh water should be always at hand for their use.

For ladies who attend personally to the wants of their canine friends, Messrs. D. H. Evans, of Oxford Street, have registered a kennel coat, which I think will fill a want. They have adopted my suggestions respecting its make and shape, and have made it in mud-coloured washing material, as that tint looks less unsightly when soiled than white, which is worn by kennel huntsmen. A protection of this kind for the dress is needed in tending dogs, and I have found it a very serviceable garment. [Fig. 142] shows the front view of this coat; and [Fig. 143], the back view.