Country Diary

Patrick Leigh-pemberton presents a beginner’s guide to becoming a model houndsman at a new hunt — even if you might be bluffing it

When I moved away from home, some of my friends were worried that I might struggle to make new connections in a new area, and I always responded with blind confidence that I would make new friends through hunting. But, having moved in spring, after the end of the hunting season, I cannot meet people in the field until autumn hunting begins.

Roll away clouds, roll on harvest. So, I have been turning to the high point of hunting’s summer scene, which is the puppy show.

The nominal purpose of a puppy show is to judge the youngest hounds in kennels, to celebrate the best breeding among them. The secondary nominal purpose is to thank the puppy walkers, who take a huge burden off the hunt staff by raising two or three hound puppies for a few months, when these puppies are at their most destructive and least obedient. The actual purpose, though, is for everyone to gather round, catch up, and have an enormous gossip while the judging is taking place.

If you are new to an area, it might well be the best time to meet as many people as possible, because they are all in one place at one time and are not as likely to jump a hedge and leave you on your own as they might be out hunting. Although, depending on the quality of the tea and bar afterwards, this is an eventuality you can’t rule out, even if they aren’t mounted.

In my case though, it is an important chance to pretend that I am very interested in hounds. I am no great equestrian, and as I would like my new acquaintances to think I am not completely inept, expressing an interest in hounds is a useful way of establishing early that if it turns out that I can’t ride, at least I am interested in hounds. If anyone else would like to take this summer shortcut into the world of hunting, I have prepared a short duffer’s guide to the hound show.

Expert attire

Wear a hat; all the pros wear hats. Straw hats are suitable for both men and women, but avoid bowlers or flat caps as these are marks of office and will identify you as an expert. People might ask you questions you

can’t answer, and the trick is to only answer the ones that you can.

To this end carry a pen, and during the judging make illegible markings in the card you will be given. Make sure people see you making the markings, but ensure they can’t be understood. I find a decent mix of underlining individual entries and circling aspects of the breeding works best. Do not offer an opinion until after the judging has been completed, and when you do don’t forget to say how different these hounds are to the ones you have known before (this isn’t foolproof, but most people will buy it).

It is completely acceptable, almost expected, to disagree with the judges on some of their selections, so be prepared to offer a vague but hard-to-disprove theory as to why they are wrong. Some of the classics include: “In my eyes that bitch was

a bit light,” or, “That dog didn’t have a very intelligent head.”

There will be at least three men on the side of the ring wearing dark suits; talk to them. It might be difficult to get a word in, but if you listen attentively, agree with almost everything that they say and add something about those roughcoated hounds seeming more independent, they

“It is completely acceptable to disagree with the judges on some of their choices”

might leave with the impression you are an intelligent houndsman. And, as they fly over the ditch in which you find yourself in December, they may still think this, even if they now also know you’re no horseman.

Patrick Leigh-pemberton has recently bought a small farm in County Durham. Here he intends to graze beef cattle and follow hounds in his spare time.

Agentle plop at the end of a straight line on an almost perfect cast. Surely this time a fish would show some interest in my offering? Sadly not. Wondering how on earth that cast was so good, when so many more before were terrible, I concentrated hard to repeat the sequence. Alas, a crumpled leader landed awkwardly. Briefly my attention was deflected as a mallard duck and four well-grown chicks glided into the pool on a speeding far-bank current. I recast, better I thought, and as the fly took its path down the pool the ducklings were enjoying a find of newly hatched fly life.

Suddenly, the mood changed. A gentle alarm call instructed the chicks back into order; mother had sensed something was wrong. I’d seen nothing. A quick glance upward revealed no aerial predators. What had caused this concern? Then, the water around the ducks erupted. I couldn’t believe my eyes when an adult otter burst from below. In the flash of a second, the brood was scattered and the otter had its prize. As invisibly as it appeared, the otter vanished and I never saw it again that day. Mother gathered her three chicks and made away downstream.

A rare glimpse

This episode was a rare glimpse into life at its most primitive and brutal, which many never get to see. I’m often reminded of the words of my first headkeeper, who proclaimed: “Every day brings something new, a new experience never witnessed before.” At the time I didn’t understand his comments. Believe me when I now say I do fully understand his sentiments; it’s happening to me. Despite working intimately with the environment, there’s so much I’ve never witnessed.

Wild bird keepering allows you to work with nature in a way that is very private. You build a relationship with the land and woods and all the life that lives there. You become

an integral part of that environment, and if you don’t feel that way you’re not doing it right. This intimacy allows you to see the countryside in a different way to others. You’re simply not looking into the countryside as you would a fish tank — you’re actually in the fish tank.

Wildlife begins to understand you and treats you as a friend or foe. Daily rounds conducted in a thoughtful manner bring you up close to the wildlife. Grey partridges are one of the first to accept you as a non-threat, and much has been written by keepers who have built up this relationship to an even greater extent than I have. However, frequent encounters with individuals and family groups where the birds remain calm and unthreatened has, for me, reinforced the understanding that this behaviour is an acceptance of our presence as something they understand.

Farmers once had this relationship with partridges but for best part it’s been lost in the chase for modernisation and progress; the days of the farm running at the same pace as the wildlife is long gone. As partridges cannot understand modern agriculture, a once vitally important relationship is broken.

Fear of humans

“This intimacy allows you to see the countryside in a different way to others”

It’s not only partridges that recognise the keeper. Carrion crows certainly get to know the approaching vehicle is a threat and become harder to outwit. They recognise the keeper on the ground and alter their activity to avoid him. There’s no such fear of humans in areas where there are no keepers; they can conduct their activities undisturbed.

The long-term benefits to the landscape that a good, diligent, caring and honest wild bird keeper brings is immeasurable. We simply cannot view the countryside through tinted glasses; it’s a living, breathing entity that needs us at its heart, understanding and working with it to make it thrive in a sustainable way.

The puppy show is often the high point of a hunt’s summer calendar as a way to thank walkers

The otter is there and gone again within seconds, making off with its prize duckling from the river