The Hat of Shame and other news

YOU know what they say about the best-laid plans. One of the houndbloggers had a plan that went well agley, as the poet said, at a recent meet. Well, it wasn’t so much the plan as the hound truck that went agley, right into a post.

When one is riding around in the hound truck, one feels as if one ought to help. So it was that when kennel manager Michael Edwards, collecting a hound at the end of the day just off a two-lane country road, asked one of the houndbloggers to please back the hound truck into position so he could safely load the hound, that houndblogger snapped to attention and did her best. Mr. Houndblogger is blameless in this; at the time, he was miles away, babysitting the house hounds. It should be said here that I am short, and the truck is tall. I should also point out that a dually is considerably wider than, for example, our faithful Tercel (the legendary Jeeves) or even our other faithful car, the Tucson named Brabinger (featured in this post).

In my attempt to back the hound truck into the side road where Michael stood waiting with the hound, I might not have done the Very Best Possible job of wrestling the truck into position for optimal hound-loading. There might have been a stone pillar involved. It could be that there is now a dent, perhaps even a significant dent, marring the beauty of the otherwise very lovely hound truck. Now, in his own defense, Michael was trying heroically to direct me from the ground, and I did hear him say, “Turn your wheel all the way to the left,” but I missed the part about “Whoa! Whoa! WHOA!” until I heard the CRRRUNCH that usually signifies that it is too late. I did, at least, hear that.

*Sigh*

Here is the result of the houndblogger-pillar-hound truck combination:

The Dent.

Now, when you do something as egregious as running the back end of the hound truck into a pillar, there’s really only one thing you can do to make up for it. Actually two things. One is to write a check to the Hound Welfare Fund and hope the hounds forgive you for messing up their nice ride. The other is to wear the Hat of Shame, which at least brings a smile back to the faces of the hunt staff.

The Hat of Shame takes a little explaining. In theory, it sounds like a good idea, which is probably why someone who shall remain nameless, we’ll call her Lilla, decided to order it in the first place. It’s a cowboy hat that is also a riding helmet. Again, this sounds great: a truly safe cowboy hat.

But then you put it on.

And then you see the problem. It. Is. Weirdly. Huge.

 

Yes, that’s why they call it the Hat of Shame.

I think there’s a reason that this hat is non-returnable. Besides, it will come in handy the next time some other hapless hound follower puts a dent in the hound truck.

An Eider Update

Beagle House’s newest resident, Clear Creek Beagles Eider, is settling in well to civilian life. His biggest accomplishment to date: learning how to climb and descend the Notched Hill. We don’t like to laugh at any of the house hounds, but, really, it was pretty comical to watch poor young Eider galumph up and down the stairs–once he figured out that was what they were for, that is. The first night he was here, we carried him up to bed, and the next morning we carried him down again for breakfast. I know, I know, but we did.

His worst stairs experience had nothing to do with going up or down–at least not on purpose. He was lying across the top of the stairs, relaxing happily, but then, inexplicably, decided to roll over. This was not advisable, because instead of rolling away from the stairs, he rolled toward them–and promptly rolled down them, having, apparently, forgotten that they were there. I didn’t see this, but Mr. Houndblogger reported that Eider righted himself about halfway down but then had too  much momentum going and, instead of making it to his feet, belly-slid down to the bottom. Once he came to a halt at the bottom of the stairs, he popped right up on his feet and stood blinking at the Notched Hill perplexedly. Fortunately, he was no worse for the experience.

 

Mr. Box demonstrates the fearsomeness of the Notched Hill.

Eider is learning a lot of other things, too, mainly along the lines of what are and are not toys. Eider’s favorite toys are the remains of several plush rabbits, rope chews, and an oversized tennis ball. Eider’s favorite non-toys are the garden hose, any sock, my Dansko clogs, the front doormat, my horse’s old martingale, the saddle pads stacked on my saddle rack, and any of the dog bowls. Pajamas are good, too.

Hooray for Hounds!

We noted with pleasure that Hickory, a Scottish deerhound, won Best in Show at Westminster last night. Congratulations, Hickory!

UPDATE TO ADD: One of Hickory’s co-owners, Dr. Scott Dove, is an honorary whipper-in at the Old Dominion Hounds, according to a story at Foxhunting Life!

You can watch Westminster’s video of the hound group judging on their site at http://www.westminsterkennelclub.org/ . A beagle, incidentally, was second to the deerhound in the hound group.

For more nice pictures of the hound herself, visit our friends at Pet Connection. Their contributor Christie Keith has a Deerhound named Rawley, so she was understandably happy with the result.

The result was all the more special because it marked the second time in three years that a hound has won Best in Show at Westminster. In 2008, the winner was the 15-inch beagle Uno. You can watch his Best in Show win–the complete class–here.

They sang along the creek (with video)

The Iroquois hounds, seen here with whipper-in Elizabeth Playforth, met Saturday at Boone Valley

IT wasn’t the best scenting day last Saturday, but the hounds got their run. And if you love to hear hounds’ voices in beautiful countryside, it was a glorious day to be out.

Huntsman Lilla Mason is currently on crutches after a riding injury, so the horn has passed to her mentor, joint-Master Jerry Miller. Saturday’s hounds were the bitch pack of twelve-and-a-half couple, and, after time away from hunting due to deer-hunting season, they were ready to get back to work.

“We’ve got to get them out of the kennel,” Master Miller explained to the field at the meet.

The challenge for Miller–as for anyone stepping in for an injured huntsman–was to “get the hounds’ eyes” and attention on him. In short, the recognize that he was in fact the day’s huntsman, even though he is not the person they generally see carrying the horn.

A quick switch in huntsmen can confuse a pack, and some hounds can be openly skeptical of the “new” huntsman’s authority. The story Clear Creek Beagles whipper-in Jean MacLean told us over the summer about her first experience walking the beagle pack is a perfect example of that!

Jerry had already hunted the dog pack in Lilla’s absence once before deer season, and their first inclination, on getting out of the hound trailer, was to search for Lilla. Simply handing over the horn doesn’t mean the hounds follow automatically. After months, even years, of close training and work with one huntsman, that switch is rarely easy.

“There’s no question that the hounds develop a close personal bond with their huntsman,” Jerry said.

That bond is so close that Lilla is careful not to let the hounds hear her voice while she’s car-following, because it would likely be a major distraction to them.

On Saturday, Jerry explained to the field and whippers-in that he would take the bitch pack to a fairly distant covert, Boyd’s Bottom, for their first draw. It takes about 20 minutes to get from the meet at Boone Valley to Boyd’s Bottom, and Jerry wanted to take that time to let them hounds get familiar with him as huntsman.

“That was the first time I’d hunted the bitches,” Jerry said later. “They’d had the loss of Lilla and then deer-hunting season, so they hadn’t been out for about a week and a half. Now they’re going out with someone strange to them. Even though I know them, they don’t know me. They’re only used to me walking with them. So I took them three or four fields south, and along the way, I kept calling each of their names and making them look at me.

“That sounds like it’s simple, but Lilla can tell you: you can call some of their names, and sometimes, like if they’re mad, they’re not going to look up at you. Some will look up immediately, especially the ones that we got from England, because Lilla hasn’t hunted them many times yet, and they’re used to a man’s voice.

“When we crossed the creek in David Estill’s going towards Boyd’s Bottom, they finally paid attention to me. I could stop and tell one to ‘bike,’ to come back in to me, and they did that. I couldn’t believe it. Why they all of a sudden decided to listen to me, I don’t know, but they did.”

The process of getting the hounds to “connect up” with a new huntsman can be slow, Jerry says, especially when the former huntsman has–as in Lilla’s case–been working closely with the hounds during all their early training and summer work.

“They do respond to me, because I say their names often,” Jerry said. “I did that all day long, saying individual hounds’ names so they could identify with me. But they got all their basics in the summer from Lilla. She knows all about them, and they know her.”

Lilla’s mount Saturday was our car Brabinger, a blue Hyundai Tucson that, while not yet schooled to jump, is a pretty good hilltopper. Plus, he has cup-holders.

(Off topic: Brabinger is named after the unflappable butler from one of our favorite comedy series, “To The Manor Born.” Our other car, the elderly but still very game Jeeves, is named after the wise valet in P. G. Wodehouse’s Jeeves and Wooster books. Highly recommended, as is the BBC television series starring Stephen Fry as Jeeves.)

Car-following has some advantages (see “cup-holders,” above). Your car is unlikely to spook. You can stay pretty comfortable and get a decent overview of the hunt. But it certainly does not compare to the wind-in-your-hair excitement of galloping cross country behind the hounds and the close-up view of good hound work. From our hillside, we couldn’t see the hounds when they struck off on a coyote line and ran along the tree-lined creek below us, but we could hear their spine-tingling cry as it echoed upward towards us.

We now know we missed quite a scene: coyote and hounds swam the creek and the run continued on the south bank. The coyote ran through a field of cattle, jumped a coop, circled back to Boyd’s Bottom, and generally gave the bitch pack plenty of exercise.

On Sunday, we tried the car-following again (this time in a truck), always being careful to stick to solid ground and roadways in order not to cause damage. Sunday’s hounds were the dog pack, consisting of eight couple. Again, the scenting was less than ideal in the warming afternoon, and there were only brief moments when hounds spoke and had a little run. Nonetheless, we had excellent views of the hounds and of the field, as shown below. You’ll spot Paper in an exuberant mood, woolly Sassoon, red-and-white Samson, and the enormous Hawkeye, the latter two among our most recent English imports. At the end of the video, as we’re returning to the meet, Gaelic stops by to say hello to Lilla.

The time off from deer season can make a significant difference to a pack, Jerry explained. Going into the two-week break while the deer-hunters are out, the pack was fit from cubbing. The sudden slowdown in activity can frustrate hounds, and when they do get back to work again, the conditions have changed.

“By the time you get them back out, scenting has completely changed,” Jerry explained. “The deer have gone into rut, the grass is starting to lose a lot of its smells, the leaves are starting to fall, and everything in those coverts is different. That can be a big setback, when you go from full covert to now where the leaves are falling off the trees, it changes everything. I would think it makes scenting better, but it’s the idea that they’ve got to sort it all out.”

These days, the hounds have more new information than usual to sort through: the new scents of late autumn, the changes in coverts, and, for now, a new huntsman. So far, so good.