The Forgotten Victims of Hunting
Hunting's impact on animals is usually focussed on the foxes, hares, deer, and other mammals that are still suffering from being illegally hunted.
But there are other animals also caught up in hunting’s exploitation of sentient beings: the dogs that hunts use.
They are the forgotten victims of hunting and another reason why we need a proper ban that closes hunts down for good.
Humans have lived with dogs for centuries. We love them, and they love us back.
It’s little wonder that dogs are routinely used as props for hunting, paraded to showcase the ‘softer’ side of illegal hunting at agricultural shows and country fairs.
Dogs are hunting’s most effective propaganda. With dogs like these, the message goes, hunting is not brutish or unkind. It loves animals.
In reality, as far as hunts are concerned our best friend is simply an expendable tool.
There are hundreds of documented reports of dogs:
- Being killed in road traffic accidents or on railway tracks after hunts have deliberately and recklessly taken dogs into unsafe situations;
- Being abandoned after falling down mineshafts while the riders continued to hunt;
- Becoming tangled in barbed wire and being rescued by sabs.
And during their short lives these dogs are often kept in appalling conditions, with very little comfort, little access to fresh water, and desperate for attention and affection.
- In 2017 the Kimblewick Hunt killed twenty-five dogs who had contracted Bovine Tb after being fed infected meat at their 'suboptimal' kennels.
- The huntmaster (a convicted badger baiter) of the Gwynned-based Dwyryd Hunt was banned from keeping dogs for ten years after twenty-nine dogs were found in ‘disgusting conditions’ at his farm.
- In early 2023 the Hunt Investigation Team (HIT) and Northumberland Hunt Watch (supported by Protect the Wild) exposed horrible conditions at one of the Border Hunt's 'kennels'.
- In the same week West Kent Hunt Sabs uploaded heartbreaking video from the Bolebroke Beagles' kennels.
Over the winter of 2022/2023 the Hunt Investigation Team and Northumberland Hunt Watch, supported by Protect the Wild, recorded conditions at one of the Border Hunt’s ‘kennels’ at Redesmouth Farm in Northumberland.
What they found proves yet again that despite claims on social media, as far as hunts are concerned ‘their’ dogs are not ‘loved’ or ‘looked after’ – they are little more than tools to chase and kill wildlife.
No longer 'fit for purpose'
Dogs as young as one are killed by hunts for not showing enough hunting instinct or just not ‘looking the part’, but as a long running investigation into the Beaufort Hunt carried out by the Hunt Investigation Team and supported by Protect The Wild proved, a hound’s reward for working hard for a hunt and its bellicose supporters is…
…a bullet to the head and a trip to the dumpster.
After watching HIT’s footage, Mike Jessop, a fellow of the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons, said that from what he saw, he did not believe the huntsmen were professionally trained in putting animals down.
Footage secured from the Beaufort Hunt investigation was the first time that a hunt had ever been caught on video camera shooting their hounds.
It is estimated that up to 7,000 dogs are killed by hunts every year and very few make it past the age of five or six despite having a life expectancy of around fourteen.
(You can watch the undercover footage here but please know that it is distressing and will upset most viewers.)
Despite all the evidence that hunts kill unwanted dogs anyway, they now routinely claim that if we don't allow the exploitation to continue they'll simply chuck their unwanted tools in the trash!
Hunts claim that because they’re not ‘house trained’ or have lived their lives in packs, these dogs can’t be rehomed.
That’s not true. These beautiful animals have been rehomed in the past, and many more could go to people who would love and cherish them, look after them properly, and not destroy them when they can’t chase foxes any more…
These dogs deserve so much better than being used up and thrown away.
Our proper ban on hunting will see that they get it.