Foxglove March 25 2009

Attending the last Meet of the season, it was good to catch up with old friends. Hounds were in their traditional garb too, their houndly colours always correct, and designed for visibility over distance, much as the types of dog I keep are coated in camouflage colours for a different job.

You can lose sight of my kind of dog in most types of countryside, but hounds need to be seen easily, and there can be few more beautiful sights than the pack travelling across winter grass, bunched closely on a burning scent.

Here at the Meet, they have a nose lifted to check out the possibility of sausage rolls and fruit cake (also traditional) as well as eyes and ears for their Huntsman, the centre of their universe.

Though a hound may seek its puppy-walker among the crowd and, when successful, indulge in a joyous embrace, our Huntsman's word is law, and they return to watch him eagerly for signs of moving off and getting on with their task of the day.

"Fit for function" is the buzzword for pedigree show dogs, but working hounds always have to be fit for function. There was a time over a hundred years ago when, briefly, some hounds were bred for looks rather than performance, but that genetic cul-de-sac ended quickly, and many packs never tried to make changes for fashion's sake.

The fashionable hounds could not stay sound and run like their predecessors, the task shaping the animal, as it always does. Working foxhounds, like their counterparts in beagle, harrier, minkhound and staghound packs, have to be sound in body and mind.

Then they have their particular talents, passed down from generation to generation, all carefully bred for skill, commitment, voice, and above all, quarry sense. Only after those aspects are present is a hound allowed to be handsome or beautiful, for a good-looking hound that cannot hunt is not worthy of being called a hound.

Each year, a few litters are bred from carefully-chosen parents representing the best bloodlines, and all hounds that are bred from first have to prove themselves in the field. Of this year's new generation, some are pups, some still waiting to be born, some not even conceived, but hopes run high for every whelp.

They will lead good, healthy, fulfilled lives, fed on the best, kept fit and well, and very much loved, but loved as hounds, not pampered lapdogs. How well this suits them is seen at every meet, especially when the Huntsman blows his horn to move off, the traditional "Hounds Please" inviting us to move aside and enjoy the spectacle, and hounds, with sterns raised and waving, trot beside their Huntsman to the first draw of the day.