Lynne Henry’s letter about the blessing of the hounds (“Strange way to treat God's creatures,” Oct. 19, TribLIVE) is way off the mark. Obviously she knows very little about America’s oldest organized sport.
I have been riding to the hounds for the past 16 years in over 350 hunts. It is rare that the fox is ever caught. We enjoy the chase, not the kill. In the rare instance that a fox is caught, it is because it is sick and not able to outrun the pack.
Most foxes know exactly where to go for safety. We don’t hunt them when the vixens are heavy with kits or when the baby foxes still depend on their mothers.
Foxes are not stupid. There is a reason that people say “sly as a fox,” because they are clever enough to outfox the hounds over and over again.
Mounted fox hunting with hounds actually keeps the small animal populations healthier because the sick foxes that are caught will not spread their diseases to other animals such as opossums, skunks, raccoons, dogs, other foxes, coyotes and humans. Included in the list of small animal diseases is the dreaded rabies that can be spread by a bite to humans. Every year, fox bites are the leading transmitter of rabies in Westmoreland County. Treatment is very expensive and painful.
So instead of criticizing fox hunting, poorly informed animal lovers should be thankful for what we do.
Dr. Bill Choby
Unity