... 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?

And how much does it cost? It's so sweet of the pro hunt lobby to spend all that money on kennels and hounds and gear on top of what it costs to keep your own horse fit for hunting, just to catch a fox or two a year, purely to help out local farmers, isn't it?!

I said time spent widely

Horses cost a bloody fortune full stop, Rebecca. The hunting cap is but a drop in the ocean!

The problem with shooting just the old foxes is that how do you know it's an old fox? Does it have to show it's bus pass? So you end up shooting any fox you see which could have young or be a young one itself. It's not a healthy way to manage a population which is why hunting with hounds began.

In hunting, no hound will catch a fit and healthy fox.

Yes I know - as I said, I had my own horse for a while, and rode for many years! But someone is paying for the kennels and the people employed by them and the hounds and the hawks and the quadbikes, for those hunts who use them... it ain't altruism, as the pro hunting lobby likes to pretend!

In a chaotic scenario like this, or where the fox has been torn to shreds, how would you ever know how old it was ?

www.google.co.uk/amp/www.birminghammail.co.uk/news/midlands-news/fox-eaten-alive-pack-hounds-12465107.amp

This hunting blogger seems to think you can tell the age, and that 1/3 of the foxes caught by his hunt were 9-18 months - even if you say 7 is a very good innings by the standards of a wild fox, that's hardly elderly:

www.google.co.uk/amp/s/jamesbarrington.wordpress.com/2013/07/04/the-fox-and-the-foxhunter/amp/

There was also the story reported by the former huntsman who witnessed catching a pregnant vixen and the master crushing the 3 baby foxes inside her with his boot. lovely.

@tofftwitty

But it's a huge pack of hounds, and the terriers, and the riders, men on foot, men on quads... They catch any fox they can using foul means. How on earth do you train a hound to gauge the age & health of a fox? Especially when it's in a high state of excitement and literally baying for blood?

There's also the hound puppies. How many of those are clubbed to death euthanised a year because they're not deemed good enough for hunting?

www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/surrey-news/the-solidarity-refreshing-moment-guildford-14155625

Nice to see Hunt sabs offering help to the hunt when they managed to nearly drown one of their horses in a bog.