Shooting Foxhounds.

Dry Rot

Member
Livestock Farmer
I assume most of the ‘anti’ posters on this thread have never actually met a kennel huntsman? Every one I’ve known treats their hounds almost better than their own family. At the end of their life, those hounds aren’t left to fester, they are pts by the person they know, in an environment they know.
Anyone that knows the slightest bit about foxhounds will appreciate that they are nothing like the gun dog that can live his days out in front of the Aga. They are bred for a job, and they live and breathe it. They certainly aren’t house dogs, and wouldn’t be happy doing anything other than the job they’re bred & trained for.

Incidentally, I was once tasked with taking my girlfriend’s (Lurcher x Collie) dog to visit the kennel huntsman for a similar job. He was to go to the kennels as it was a place he always loved. He died from a single shot, the huntsman having a soft hand under his jaw, and still wagging his tail when he went. It was a far kinder end than a visit to the vets’ would ever have been. And yes, that girlfriend became the current Mrs NeilO, and we still hold the same values.
I tried to write a post like that a dozen times but ended up deleting the lot. I have hunted hounds and you are spot on. I always put my own dogs down, and horses too. They never know a thing about it and it is over in a split second. I'd rather go through that painful (for me) process than take them to the vet surgery, a place they are instinctively suspicious of.

The local police dog handler called in one day and was almost in tears telling me how he was made to sit in the waiting room behind owners of puppies being "vet checked" and others in for routine vaccinations while his dog, suffering from cancer. had to wait. No, I may be a hard cruel barsteward for having shot and hunted all my life but I would hope to think I could depart this world in the same way, but that's unlikely. My father fortunately died before the medics had the chance to carry out the threat to amputate his legs to prevent death by gangrene. The modern world is not as humane as it pretends to be. A lot is window dressing for human vanity. There is none so blind as he who will not look.
 

czechmate

Member
Mixed Farmer
An old dog we have really enjoys his trips to the vet, he likes the car trip & the girls making a fuss of him. He’s like an old person having a day trip from his nursing home 😁
When it’s his time, I’ll take him to the vet because I don’t want to do it & I know he won’t be stressed by the vets


The only dog I had put down by the vet, I made an appointment and he came out to the car park and injected her while still asleep in the back of my car.
 

Nearly

Member
Location
North of York
Took 17 year old Jack Russell to vets last weekend after she had a stroke.
As said above, vet did it outside in car. As good as it could be.

The huntsman with hounds above was daft to be allowed to be filmed and I wonder if 4 were done at once it seemed like a bulk clearout rather than when the time was right for each dog.
 

willy

Member
Mixed Farmer
Location
Rutland
The cruel buggers are the ones who spoil little pooch literally to the verge of death through obesity, leave them in the house all day while they go to work and then spend the last 4 years of its life pumping it with pills for their own benefit not the dogs..... When it's time it's time, a bullet is as quick as a drug, what is the problem
 

David.

Member
Mixed Farmer
Location
J11 M40
I'm not sure why dispatching old hounds from a pack is seen as being any worse than the greyhound racing lot doing the same when their dogs don't measure up, or at the end of their racing career.
The Kennel Club, full of people supposedly potty about canines; have been responsible for far worse ongoing cruelty to dogs by encouraging extremes of type to be bred for showing.
Dogs with extreme facial characteristics making it difficult for them to breathe properly, German Shepherds with hip dysplasia as a result of breeding for ridiculously low hindquarters, etc.
There are far worse things in the world than a quick rub of the ears and a lead injection.
 
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Sid

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
South Molton
For some equality
Keep the Ban estimates that close to 7,000 hunting hounds are killed each year. The practice is not illegal and can be done for a variety of reasons, including illness, injury or old age.

according to PDSA there are 9.6 million dogs in the UK.
If their average lifespan is 10 year old there are 960,000 killed (that's 953,000 more than the hunts) each year by vets, its not illegal and can be done for a variety of reasons, including illness, injury, old age or as said to a vet nurse I know, because we have family and friends coming round at Christmas and the old dog will get stressed with all the strangers.

hyhypocrites

Just like to add I don't hunt either.
 
The cruel buggers are the ones who spoil little pooch literally to the verge of death through obesity, leave them in the house all day while they go to work and then spend the last 4 years of its life pumping it with pills for their own benefit not the dogs..... When it's time it's time, a bullet is as quick as a drug, what is the problem

reminds me of a dinner party a few years ago, a guest was a very affluent vet based in central london where his clients didn’t care about the bills.

some rangerover driving bimbo had flattened her shittsue and rushed it in, he said it looked like a pancake on arrival.

asked if he could save it, he said no, asked if he could keep it alive for a bit longer, he said yes. She told him to do it to save face. He told her it was morally cruel and refused. She threatened to sue him.

for some they are fashion statements.

ive a lab pushing 15, not sure which option is best for her, probably back of the truck in vet car park. Will be a sh!t day, even if she is on her 3rd life
 

PSQ

Member
Arable Farmer
The cruel buggers are the ones who spoil little pooch literally to the verge of death through obesity, leave them in the house all day while they go to work and then spend the last 4 years of its life pumping it with pills for their own benefit not the dogs..... When it's time it's time, a bullet is as quick as a drug, what is the problem

I watched my lab pup play with the 5 year old lab this morning, properly roughing each other up but wagging like it was going out of fashion, and thought of the dogs at the local hunt kennels.

They live as a 'pack', they hunt as a pack, they are allowed to express a dogs natural pack behaviour, and they wont linger at the end of their lives or live in pain for years.

And while I don't necessarily agree with hunting, I wonder if the BBC and media coverage isn't massively swayed by a perceived urban 'class-ism', especially when my local hunt is predominantly a mix of working and middle class 'rural workers', every type of tradesmen and professionals, doctors and business people; with a minority 'upper' class.

The real story should be about the cruelty of keeping individual dogs in an urban environment, where they are kept far away from exhibiting natural canine behaviour, and kept alive in infirmity for the owners benefit, when they should be allowed a humane dispatch at the right time for the dog.
 

unlacedgecko

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Fife
The real story should be about the cruelty of keeping individual dogs in an urban environment, where they are kept far away from exhibiting natural canine behaviour, and kept alive in infirmity for the owners benefit, when they should be allowed a humane dispatch at the right time for the dog.

Better to kill them 6 month early than 1 day late.
 

thorpe

Member
View attachment 990364

"Nells"

It's an old photo and she's a lot greyer in the head now. I spend more time with this bitch than any other living being (including my Mrs). She's carried my business the past 5 years. This has allowed me to pay my bills.

In the next 3-6 yrs her body will degrade to the point she can't work anymore. I'll shoot her in the head and put the carcass in the deadstock bin for incineration.

There is no welfare compromise if an animal is killed instantly with a shot to the brain. Dead animals don't suffer and there are many fates with than death.

I'll be very sad, but I'll do my duty and see out my old friend personally. I won't let her fade into a shadow of her former self, rotting in a kennel for "retirement". I just hope someone is on hand to show me the same kindness when the time comes, if I'm unable to do it myself.
sorry couldnt put her in the dead bin she would have to be buried on the farm.
 

neilo

Member
Mixed Farmer
Location
Montgomeryshire
Sooner shoot a dog myself then let that so called "supervet" let loose on it!

That man is not liked by any vets I have ever talked to about him!

Where there is life there is death.

Mrs NeilO tapped him on the shoulder when she saw him at Crufts two years ago. He turned round and immediately asked if she would like his autograph.
No, she said, a friend had asked her to see why he hadn’t bothered calling back about a dog she’d got and he was treating. To say he was deflated is something of an understatement.🤣
Mrs NeilO has never been a fan either.
 

BrianV

Member
Mixed Farmer
Location
Dartmoor
Both of my Alsatians have been put down by vets on a home call - very quiet and quick. The first on was done in the garden while I held her and I started to cry as she slipped away. Once the vet was sure she was gone he just quietly walked away and left me to grieve.
The different methods of the animal being put down really makes no difference to the animal involved only to the person watching who has become so detached from the real world, very many animals are killed by other animals with a slow lingering death but we consider that to be fine because it's "natural"!
 

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