... to feel disgusted at fox-chasing toff-twits!

[counterpoint]

On my way to a local town for lunch today, we had to slow down and stop as a horse came galloping up towards us in the middle of the road. On his back sat a dandified twit who was looking for his hounds. In the nearby field some 100 (I kid you not) other starched twits sat on brainwashed horses with hungry hounds running amok. Traffic swayed and stopped as these twits had clearly lost the little sense they had and were dispersing all over the highway, horses looking dazed at being led among cars at great speed on slippery tarmac. Hounds confusedly sniffing all over the road and verges. How much had these twit-toffs drunk? It was not yet noon!

My friends in our car tried to calm me down saying it must be a drag when all of a sudden a poor defenseless fox jumped on the dry-stone wall looking wild-eyed as it tried to determine whether he was safer making a run for it across a busy road or turn back into a field of crazed, uncontrolled hounds and drunken (British?) twits. The fox froze and the driver of my car sped on as I screamed with panic for the predictable fate of the fox.

Why the f*ck is a supposedly civilized country allowing this kind of savagery to continue?

If a fox is sheep worrying i have absoluty no issue with a farmer shooting it. Same with a rogue dog. If the farmer released a pack of hunt hounds to dispatch of said fox, i'd have a problem. Then again, so would the lambs most likely!!

yes but derxa rats aren't cute and fluffy are they? also their colour is less attractive than a fox...

See i don't like poisoning rats either. We had a problem at a house i stayed in at Uni...i'd rather humanely trap them & release them elsewhere 🙈 Poisoning 'vermin' can also have a knock on effect to other animals

Rats need poisoning if they are infesting your yard/garden. Speaking from bitter experience. there was a feed store up the road and the whole village was infested with them. No I was not going to 'humanely trap them' and 'release them elsewhere', how silly.

Ah yes of course, that tradition where people get dressed up in special clothes and get specially trained horses and specially trained dogs and then chase the rat around until it's exhausted - even better if the rat is nocturnal and you're forcing it to run in daylight - and then enjoy watching it get ripped apart when it's terrified and exhausted. If you're really lucky, someone will smear its blood on your face, whoopee.

That is exactly the same as wanting someone to remove a pest that can cause disease from your house or a wild animal doing what animals do. Great argument, you've sure convinced me!

@ rebecca

YANBU

Dull as I already pointed out, we had a rat problem? I haven't just plucked that out of thin air. Poisoning rats can have an impact on other animals in the area unless you can guarantee that no other animal is going to ingest it or pick at the dead rats!

mustbemad - so you picked up your problem and gave to someone else?
Trust me, my garden was infested. They had to go.

'release them elsewhere' So someone else has a rat problem? We did have rats in the feed shed but we had a special feed locker built. We didn't put down poison because one of the farm dogs could have eaten a poisoned rat.
If a fox is sheep worrying i have absoluty no issue with a farmer shooting it. Same with a rogue dog Yes but many on here would have an issue with that as well.

Ive killed mice in the house before now with a non humane trap. But that’s not for sport is it? Also the traps are instant, so not the same cruelty aspect.

In the sheds I don’t kill mice, I just make sure any animal feed is in metal bins.

I said i'd rather - unfortunately it wasn't my decision. And we had a pretty nuts problem. However the several cats that were poisoned thanks to the rats being poisoned didn't go down well. Neither did the dog that nearly died!!

Derxa i was brought up in Germany, if your dog strayed onto a farmer's property it could be shot on sight...i think rather than blaming the farmer (as many would) it taught me to be a responsible dog owner!

Yeah Viva if you're going to kill them at least do it humanely. And with limited risk of other animals getting caught up as happens with poison

dullandvoid yes i agree, those probably were the reasons it got banned. So like i say if it was a working mans sport it would have been banned years ago, rather than reluctantly ban it so late in the day in order to appease voters.

not really 'bestthings' - nobody is crying about the suffering of fish or mocking the clothes that people wear to do it - are they?

When the truth is that the fish gets a hook through its lip, it gets torn out, and then the fish is usually thrown back in to continue suffering.

But hey it's not 'toffs' that do it, so that's fine!

it taught me to be a responsible dog owner! We had an incidence of sheep worrying last year. We were all outside at the time and the dog was headed off. No real harm done. But the owner had no clue. She said,'I'm sure they're lovely sheep'. Well she hadn't seen a pile of dead sheep lying in a pile literally scared to death. This is what I mean about lack of knowledge of country life. I don't mean to sneer. It's just having an awareness of how predators and prey coexist. And again I don't support fox hunting.

anyone else noticed the Hunt supporters have nothing to say about the Hunt that rampaged through the Sanctuary? Apparently they were chasing a Fox and a Deer!

@derxa

@kennyFromTheBlock

Why do you have so much anger towards an animal? Foxes don't think like we do they're not malicious they don't look at sheep and think "oh there's a sheep I'll kill it for a laugh because I'm a nasty mr fox". They kill it because it's dinner and it's called NATURE! Are you going to cry and have a tantrum when a lion gets an antelope? 🤦🏻‍♀️

Why do you have so much anger towards an animal? Foxes don't think like we do they're not malicious they don't look at sheep and think "oh there's a sheep I'll kill it for a laugh because I'm a nasty mr fox". They kill it because it's dinner and it's called NATURE! Are you going to cry and have a tantrum when a lion gets an antelope? I don't think you read posts very well. I don't have anger against animals. It's humans I have a problem with.

Any dog in the act of worrying livestock can legally be shot without warning in the UK. Something that should be told to anyone that has a dog when they buy it.

Unless livestock has actually died most farmers will offer the owner 'words of advice' the first time.

The second time they will probably be less forgiving.

Derxa i didn't in any way take your post as a sneer, i agree with you! I think sometimes people look at the wrong side to apportion blame. I remember a year or so back a husky disappeared on a walk & terrorised a field of sheep - the damage was horrific. The farmer shot the dog after trying to catch it or scare it off. There was utter outrage on FB calling for the farmer to be charged...whilst very few mentioned the fact that the idiot dog owner had let his dog disappear through the woods & into private land. I'm a massive animal lover, but I am a realistic one. If populations need controlling, fine. Do it in the least stressful way possible. If a dog attacks your livestock & you can't get rid, shoot it. What I don't like is the sadistic side to it, such as hunting. And I hate hate hate with a passion the chicken owners who cry for the death of foxes because they haven't secured the hen houses properly

mustbemad17

Good post & I agree.

OP, fuck off the far side of fuck then fuck off some more!

intelligent

Will OP meet you there then Reddington?