"The One" Dog and "The Others": A Study of Canine Character

by Frances E. Slaughter

Very strong evidence of the tie being recognised between parents and children is given me by Miss Serrell, who, when her terrier puppies return from walk, never hesitates to put two generations of the same family together. She tells me that the puppies’ tricks and gambols, that cannot but be disturbing to the older dogs, will never be resented by the mothers, though no other dogs in the kennels would suffer them. As terriers have the character of being particularly quarrelsome, and certainly require the most judicious management to keep the peace among a number of them, no testimony to the recognition of the family tie could be more convincing.

Then, too, we see the same characteristics, mental and moral, appearing in members of the same family. How jealously this truth is acted upon by hound breeders, we have only to study the kennel registers to see. A somewhat curious instance of unusual traits of independent action by a litter brother and sister took place in the Blackmore Vale country.

The mother of these hounds was bred by Mr. Merthyr Guest, some ten years before he resigned the Mastership. She had a great influence in the kennels, and in 1894 Rama and her brother Raleigh, “hounds of very marked character,” were born to her. The account of their peculiarities I take verbatim as Miss Serrell has given it:[2]

“Rama, a bright tan and white with a very intelligent head, was a useful hound in the field, but she had a curious characteristic that was not so much to her credit. No power and no persuasion would induce her to come home with the pack after a day’s hunting. She would go to covert in the morning demurely enough, and she hunted in a most business-like manner, but directly the day’s sport was over her good conduct came to an end. The moment the hounds and whippers-in grouped together and the Master gave the word for ‘home,’ Rama would set off by herself and race up hill and down dale till she was out of sight. No whipper-in could turn her, no horn recall her, and it was not till some two hours after the Master had reached home that she generally made her appearance at Inwood. Sometimes, however, she would make her way leisurely back to the kennels and sneak in during the evening.

“Such unhoundlike conduct was not to be tolerated, so the order was given for her to be caught and coupled to another hound. She was then forced to trot home with the rest of the pack, but she did so with her stern down and an expression of unspeakable sadness upon her face. She soon showed that she had a soul above such tyranny, for after she had been captured once or twice, it was enough for the whipper-in to dismount and begin unbuckling the couples for her to make off. Indeed so sharp did she become that at last the Master did not dare to give the order for her to be caught, or to allow the jingling of the couples, but he arranged beforehand that she should be secured before the end of the day’s sport. It was not long before Rama was on her guard even against this early capture, and with a look at the hunt servants she would turn and gallop off before the last covert was drawn.

Raleigh Trial
Rama Armiger
MR. GUEST’S HOUNDS. 1900

“Raleigh, a brother of Rama, was also a peculiar hound, and in his first cub-hunting season showed an extraordinary objection to coming out of covert with the other hounds. He would follow to the side of the covert, and it was very funny to see him peeping out and disappearing again if he saw he was being waited for. Again and again he would do this, until at last, when the coast was clear, he would jump out and go on with the pack as if nothing had happened. Raleigh was very fond of looking into every cottage garden, but he was not such an inveterate cat-hunter as Rama, who would dash into and through every garden before she could be stopped, and woe betide the cat who was not quick enough to save herself in the nearest apple-tree.”

In a neighbouring country in the West, a curious trait was shown by one of the hounds. She would never go to covert with the rest of the pack or return home at night with them. When the work of the day began, she was always up and took her full share with her fellows. But on the way out from kennels in the morning, she always ran by herself at some distance from the others, though not too far off for her to be able to keep the line to the selected covert. The same thing happened as soon as the word for home was given, and the solitary figure, at some few hundred yards on one side or the other of the kennel party, would be seen flashing over the fields and hedges as if the hound was acting scout to the retiring force.

Another hound in the same kennels would only hunt with one of the Masters, who in turn acted as huntsman. With one of the huntsmen this hound would behave in normal fashion and do her work well in the field, but for the other she would not only not work, but she would not go out with the pack when it was in his hands.