If hunting with dogs is banned and all those lovely dogs are pts, what then? Are we set to lose a breed of dog, or can they continued to be bred as pets? I ask this because there are other breeds, bred initially for hunting that have successfully made the transition from pack animal to pet.

Sharon

see my previous posts on puppy walking for info!

Sam I have read the post and I utterly agree with you however I am wondering if the hounds used for hunting on foot in Cumbria are different. I believe they are called fell hounds, are they a different breed altogether than the fox hound even though they also hunt foxes? People certainly seem to keep them at their own houses in outside kennels even though the Blencathra has kennels and I did see a notice put up in Keswick about a missing one, obviously a pet and photographed inside the house. I seem to be reading that foot hunting may be not facing a ban, is this true?

I think you may be getting the foxhounds mixed up with the trail hounds it was a trail hound that went missing.

Do you think the ones that live in the back gardens are trail hounds then? It's just that I have never heard of trailing in the Keswick area.

Hound trailing takes place on the fells all over Cumbria during the summer months they have races in the evenings and weekends.They posted notices about the bitch that was missing all over the county incase she had been picked up by somebody local or a tourist. Where abouts do you live Isabel? Gillian

Bit like to 2 hunt beagles taken back to London and handed over to a dog home.
I do know of someone who has 2 foxhounds in a country family home, but to get this common place would take a few generations to breed out the high hunting instinct, and many years, and who is knowledgable enough with enough time and money to dedicate themselves to that sort of breeding programme. Plus that does nothing to save the fate of those already in packs. Ingrid

AAAAh I am enlightened. I have met a few people about with these sort of hounds (I live in Keswick some of the time :)) and I always thought they were something to do with the Blencathra. Have met some folk that follow the Blencathra too. I hope they find that hound, although it may not be the same one as I am almost sure it was a male on the notice I saw, as it was clearly the pet they said it was as it was photographed in comfortable surroundings in a home. I presume the trail hounds just follow a scent?

Thats right Isabel they do follow a scent.I live in Workington.Gillian