winter of cruelty begins as fox hunting season gets underway

August is start of the winter of cruelty with the commencement of the foxcub hunting season. Over the next three months mounted and foot foxhunters will be in the countryside blooding foxhounds and harrier hounds with young fox cubs.

Cub hunting is the bloody training ground for new hounds coming into the pack and for older hounds to rekindle their interest in hunting foxes. The huntsman intention is to gel the hounds in one single killing unit, ready and able to do his or her bidding on the hunting day.

Hounds are guided by the huntsman to scent, hunt down and kill fox cubs. The more foxcubs that end up in the mouths of the hounds they more hounds they understand their role. 

Hounds must know that their sole purpose in the pack is to hunt down and kill foxes. Nothing else. A hunting pack has no place for a canine passenger. Hounds that fail to find a role in the pack are put down without any thought given to the fact that they are fit and healthy.

After months of hunting down and killing fox cubs hounds are ready to face up to a demanding hunting season. Many hounds will not see a hunting season through as among the hazards a hunting hounds faces is death by traffic, shooting by landowners who don't want the hunt on their land, falls over cliffs, kicks by horses and over-hunting leading to an early death. 

Even at the end of a hunting season there is no respite for hounds. Each year a pack of hounds needs to bring in new hounds with the result that some hounds must go to make way for the new entry.  As ever, healthy hunting hounds with a couple of seasons under their paws trot their way towards an premature death as hunt kennels are not canine retirement homes but animal killing centres.

Hunting with hounds is a bloody cruelty soaked activity. The people who engage in it are devoid of any compassion towards animals. They pollute the countryside with their cruelty footprint and are nothing less than countryside terrorists.