In connection with deer-stalking, the practice of “blooding” has been described as “a hunting tradition which goes back to the Middle Ages, and recalls the days when the gentle craft of venery was the most cherished accomplishment of our monarchs.”
The Blooding of Hounds.
In the prosecution of Mr. Alexander Ormrod, joint Master of the Ribblesdale Buckhounds, by the R.S.P.C.A. on November 11, 1912, for cruelty to a doe, there was evidence that the unfortunate deer, turned out in private to “blood” a new pack of hounds, was lame and wholly out of condition; and, as Truth remarked, “the mere fact that the animal, although given a good start, only managed to get two or three hundred yards away before being pulled down, ‘screaming like a child,’ was quite sufficient to show that she was incapable of escape.” Take the following:
“Mr. Marmaduke Wright, of Bolton Hall, a member of the Hunt, said he saw Oddie (a hunt servant) the day before the hunt took place. Oddie said they were going to let a lame deer out of the pen to blood the young hounds, and witness said he would not go out, as he did not care about hunting tame calves, much less a lame one.”
The statement of John James Macauley, an eye-witness, was that the deer “scarcely put her hind-leg on the ground.”
“She was followed by the hounds for a distance of about two hundred yards.… When the doe could see she was overtaken, she stopped, and he heard the poor little thing screaming like a child.”
Lord Ribblesdale, called to speak as to the practice of blooding hounds, condemned the method adopted by his colleague.
“If blooding had been the object, his opinion was that there should have been a sudden, sharp, and decisive transaction [sic], which would have made the hounds, whenever they saw a deer, go at it. If they intended to blood hounds, the method pursued by Mr. Ormrod was most foolish. It was not an uncommon thing to blood hounds, and with regard to the question of cruelty, if they argued from elemental principles, all sport was cruel. He had hunted carted deer, and there had been no cruelty.”
Asked whether, if a lame, emaciated, and weakened deer were released from a pen, it would be an unreasonable thing to hunt it, Lord Ribblesdale replied—