For a few years after college, I worked at a tony girls’ boarding school in Northern England. The students ranged from 10 to 19 years-old and just about all of them were fox hunters, except the kids whose parents worked at the school. They were way too “common” (read- poor) to hunt. Many of the girls boarded their horses at the school. The stalls were nicer than my dusty flat and the horses were treated better than me naturally, since I was just a common Yank who was especially repugnant to them because of my unfortunate ginger hair.
During my time there, I learned more about fox hunting than I ever wanted to know. I learned that you do not come between a huntress and her horse, lest you want to bear her fiercesome wrath. I learned that the right to fox hunt is more important to some people than the right to healthcare or a decent education. And I learned that if you offer an opinion that even hints that fox hunting is brutal and archaic and completely ridiculous, you will get assaulted with a riding crop in a ways you could not even imagine.
Shortly after my tenure at the boarding school ended, foxhunting was banned in England. There were a lot of unhappy kids at that school after that ruling. I’m sure they were crying into their “Stop the Urban Jackboot” T-shirts and consoling each other with tales of the good old days when they were just young pups in the hunt and they were “blooded”- the process of wiping the fox’s blood on the faces of the newly initiated hunters. I’ll take a pass on that, thanks.
While those girls can’t hunt in their home country, there are more than enough fox hunting opportunities here in the U.S. Like right here in Charlotte, VT, where Elaine Ittleman runs the Green Mountain Hounds. The hunt doesn’t actually chase real foxes; just a scent that smells like fox pee. Mmmm, yum. The hunt has been around for the past 10 years, but oddly, we’ve never written about it. So I, intrepid girl reporter, figured that would make a good fall story. I visited with Elaine yesterday to talk about the hunt, but mostly I just went to hang with the hounds.Who wouldn’t? Look at them:
This one is perched on her hind legs with a paw on my crotch. Pleasant.
I love dogs. That’s no secret. I’d have 300 of them if they would fit in my apartment. So going to Elaine’s was like a dream come true. I’d be surrounded by a pack of 17 hounds that would love me and cherish me as if I was one of their own. I could probably deal without the bum-sniffing though.
So Elaine took me through the barn and into the huge paddock where the hounds are kept. FYI- they’re not called dogs. They’re called hounds. Don’t call them dogs (even if they are). As soon as she opened the barn door to the yard, I was mobbed. It was like I was carrying hamburger patties in my pockets. The hounds were all over me. None of them much cared that I was wearing a down vest that could easily be ripped, or that I was wearing a brand spanking new shirt. They were jumping all over me and I was covered in paw prints in about three seconds.
Elaine called them off which worked for about 11 seconds before they all gravitated back over to me. I couldn’t really get my barings because one of the hounds had a snout up my vest, another hound had a nose down my jeans, three hounds were sniffing my bits and another four were crawling up my front. See photo below:
This one is digging for gold under my puff vest. (PS- I’ve got stuff in my pockets. I’m not really that huge.)
After the friendly mauling, I decided to sit on a stone wall while Elaine talked to me about the hounds. I am lazy and I hate to stand, so if I can sit, I’ll do it. What a bad decision that was. The moment I sat down, those hounds were up on the wall with me and I had four hounds sniffing my head and one licking my neck. Needless to say, my own dog was not impressed when I got home. I definitely smelled like I was getting frisky with a pack of hounds (not literally). It was the dog equivalent of lipstick on the collar.
The hounds soon lost interest in me when the realized that 1. I was not going to feed them and 2. I was not a fox. Though I am quite foxy. Anyway. They went back to eating leaves and humping each other, which was clearly more exciting than following me around. The interview from then on was only marred my occassional missteps into poop landmines. On Thursday I’m going back to watch the hunt. Sadly, I will not be following along on horseback because my horsemanship lies somewhere between “really great at pony rides” to “can barely get into the saddle.” I’ll just have to watch them ride off into the abyss that is Huntington.
Check out the video of the hounds noshing on their breakfast kibble.
