How to Tame a Fox (and Build a Dog)
How to Tame a Fox (And Build a Dog) by By Lee Alan Dugatkin and Lyudmila Trut, The University of Chicago Press, 2017, 216 pagesIt is accepted science that dogs evolved from wolves about fifteen thousand years ago. One can imagine, back in primitive times, certain needy wolves sidling up to man for food and shelter. Or orphaned cubs being saved by primitive families. In those relationships that proved successful, both wolf and man discovered advantages. Even disregarding love and companionship (those were harder times), the wolf was assured access to food and shelter in all seasons, and man discovered a hunting partner that contributed to his well-being and that of his family. The domesticated wolves, genetically disposed to the relationship, bred with others so disposed, and succeeding generations over the millennia evolved into purpose-bred dogs.
But just how did that evolution occur? It hasn’t been recorded. What if you could speed up the process and witness it? Two Soviet geneticists tried to do just that. They wanted to try to breed foxes as friendly to people as dogs, and this is their story—“part science, part Russian fairy tale, and part spy thriller,” says The New York Times Book Review.
Rhoda Hopkins Root Lived Life at the Top of Her Games
Rhoda Hopkins, one of the first female professional huntsmen* in North America, died peacefully on June 18, 2017. She was eighty-eight.
Rhoda hunted the Fairfield County Hounds (CT) for fifteen years, from 1979 to 1994. Her pack of Penn-Marydel foxhounds provided excellent sport in the field, and excelled at the hound shows, winning the Pack Class at Bryn Mawr for seven consecutive seasons. Hers were the first Penn-Marydels I ever hunted behind, and I remember galloping as fast to keep up as I have behind any other pack of foxhounds since.
Huntsmen’s Room Honors Three New Inductees
Arapahoe Joint-Master Mary Ewing introduces Marvin Beeman. / Douglas Lees photo
A countryman from Virginia, a veterinarian from Colorado, and a businessman from north Florida were honored by an appreciative crowd of well-wishers on the occasion of their induction into the Huntsmen’s Room of the Museum of Hounds and Hunting. Ceremonies were conducted at Morven Park, Leesburg, Virginia on Saturday, May 27, 2017. This was the evening before the Virginia Foxhound Show over the Memorial Day Weekend.
James Lee Atkins, Dr. G. Marvin Beeman, MFH, and C. Martin Wood III, MFH were selected by a committee of their peers for having carried the hunting horn with honor, courage, and distinction in hunting fields across North America in their lifetimes. The three men join a select club of just forty-one pre-eminent huntsmen so honored. The last inductions were made two years ago.
Foxhunting Tips
Karen Myer photoYou just received the most beautiful fox head earrings last week for your birthday. Won’t they look smashing in the hunting field, worn with your new dark blue frock coat?
You just heard a staccato burst of perhaps ten rapid notes on the huntsman’s horn from inside the covert. What’s happening?
Your blood is up, hounds are racing in full cry, your horse is jumping every obstacle with enthusiasm, and it’s clearly the best run of the season. You gallop through an open gate and repeat the call you heard from riders ahead of you. “Gate, please!” Have you fulfilled your duty?
The whipper-in gallops by and advises the Field Master that a leash of foxes just left the covert. What?
Et Tu, New York Times?
Teddy, pawing the pavement / Sketch of New York TImes photo
Damon Winter, writing cut lines for a New York Times article about Mayor Bill de Blasio’s attempts to ban horse drawn carriages in New York City, got taken. In so doing, the Times published fake news.
Here’s Winter’s caption for the photo sketched above: “Teddy signaling his desire for more food by scraping his shoes on the sidewalk.”
Oh, we get it alright. We’re supposed to believe that poor Teddy is being starved and abused by his carriage driver.
What happened to fact-checking here? Obviously, Winter knows nothing about horses, nor do the animal activists that fed him that line. And if they do know something about horses, that’s even worse. They would know there are many reasons for a horse to scratch the ground aside from hunger, and would be knowingly lying.
Rockbridge Hunt’s Reading Group: A Win for Foxhunting
Rockbridge Hunt Joint-Master Hugh Brown (center), described his hunt’s successful reading group to writers Mary Kalergis and Norman Fine.
“Tell me a story,” is one of my favorite sentences in the English language. So I responded enthusiastically when Hugh Brown, MFH told me about the reading group organized by the Rockbridge Hunt (VA). The Masters hit a responsive chord. Even members of nearby hunts have been attracted to join.
By keeping the literature of foxhunting alive, the Rockbridge Masters have found another way to further engage their members into this sport we all love. What better way to absorb our history and traditions while reveling in the humor and entertainment of a good story?
“The reading group is the brainchild of longtime Master Cindy Morton,” says Brown who raided his extensive library to help kick-start the operation. “We specifically didn’t want to limit it to Rockbridge Hunt members, and we definitely wanted to focus on foxhunting. We’ve had great discussions on related subjects like big game hunting in Africa and bear hunting, but we always return to the fox (and coyote).
Grand Championship at Virginia Ends 15-Year Drought for Orange County
Orange County Kermit 2015, shown by huntsman Reg Spreadborough, is Grand Champion at Virginia Foxhound Show. / Liz Callar photo
The Grand Championship class for the coveted William W. Brainard, Jr. Perpetual Cup at the Virginia Foxhound Show finally got underway at around six p.m. It’s always an exciting class, despite the late hour on a day, May 28, 2017, that started at 9:00 a.m. for five hundred hounds and participants representing seventy hunts. Thunderstorms had struck towns all over Virginia from noontime on, but hardly a raindrop fell in Leesburg.
Four magnificent foxhounds walked out with their handlers: English, American, Crossbred, and Penn-Marydel Champions. Now they would vie for the Grand Championship of Show. Each of the four, after vanquishing all other hounds through the long day of winnowing, were obviously superb representatives of their respective breeds. In this observers view, absent any serious and previously undetected flaws in conformation, it would be a test of movement—that free-flowing, ground-covering, shock-absorbing, athletic, and energetic stride that tells the judge, “I can keep doing this day after day, year after year.”
Central States Gives Brazos Valley 2nd Grand Championship of Season
Brazos Valley Mudbug 2014 is Grand Champion Foxhound at the Central States Hound Show. Sandy Dixon, MFH shows hound. Judge John Gray is standing. / Angela Fain photo
Sandy Dixon, MFH and huntsman of the Brazos Valley Hounds scored her second Grand Championship this season, this time at the Central States Hound Show on May 13, 2017 in Stilwell, Kansas. Brazos Valley Mudbug 2014, an American foxhound, was judged Best in Show.
Mudbug is by Brazos Valley Jett 2012 ex Brazos Valley Minnow 2010. Mudbug’s dam Winnow is by Brazos Valley Catfish 2006, a three-time Grand Champion at the Southwest Hound Show.
The Epping Hunt
Here are selections from The Epping Hunt, Thomas Hood’s humorous 1829 epic poem about shopkeeper John Huggins, who goes hunting one day astride a horse that he shares with his neighbor, Fig.
George Cruikshank was the illustrator for Thomas Hood’s epic poem.
A stolid man of business was John Huggins…
Six days a week beheld him stand,
His business next his heart,
At counter with his apron tied
About his counter-part.
With a sporting core…
For all the live-long day before,
And all the night in bed,
Like Beckford, he had nourish’d “Thoughts
On Hunting” in his head.
Myopia Lupy Surprises: Wins Grand Championship at New England
Un-entered Mopia Lupy matured overnight to win the Grand Championship at the New England Hound Show. / Shawn Tinkham photo
Un-entered Myopia Lupy may have surprised some when she was judged Grand Champion at the New England Hound Show on Sunday, May 7, 2017, but none could have been more surprised than her huntsman and the Myopia Masters. The un-entered Lupy, not yet a year old, hadn’t exhibited the slightest inclination to show herself off during the prior week-and-a-half of show training back home.
“She had no interest in concentrating,” said Kim Cutler, MFH of the Massachusetts pack. “She was all over the place—just a puppy.”
“Her litter mate, Luna, paid attention,” recalled Phillip Headdon, Myopia huntsman, “but Lupy was just…loopy!”