No members of your hunting community are loved by Masters and huntsman as dearly as the puppy walkers. Each year these intrepid folk accept the arrival of a couple of playful pups to their country home in early summer to teach them their names, walking on lead, a semblance of civilized behavior, and a taste of life outside the kennel.
In a couple of months, after the cuddly innocents have grown into marauding, thieving, hunting fanatics, the puppy walkers cry, “Uncle!” and the huntsman returns to reclaim them. The huntsman will be back the following summer, however, and these generous puppy walkers will smilingly welcome yet another couple of wide-eyed puppies to their property.
So, when your Masters praise the puppy walkers at the annual puppy show and bestow a small trophy upon those who walked the winning hounds, recall this poem by Will H. Ogilvie and give the puppy walkers their due!
Will You Walk a Puppy?
‘Will you walk a puppy?’ the Hunt enquired.
Being sportsmen, we did as the Hunt desired.
And early in June there arrived a man
With an innocent bundle of white and tan.
A fat little Foxhound, bred to the game,
With a rollicking eye and a league-long name,
And he played with a cork at the end of a string;
And walking a puppy was ‘just the thing.’
But the days went by and the bundle grew,
And broke the commandments and stole and slew,
And covered the lawn with a varied loot
Of fowl and feather and bone and boot,
And scratched in the garden a hundred holes,
And wearied our bodies and damned our souls
As we chased him over the plots and swore
There was ‘walking a puppy’ for us no more!
If he’s half as good in a woodland ride
As he is at tucking young ducks inside,
And half as keen on the scent of a fox
As he is at finding my red silk socks,
It is safe to bet when our hound goes back
He will make a name in the ducal pack,
For he’ll empty a cover – of beef or brose,
And he’ll stick to a line – if it’s hung with clothes!
Bronze by Belinda Sillars
Will H. Ogilvie was born in Scotland in 1869. He farmed sheep in Australia during much of his youth, was a Professor of Agriculture in the U.S. for a time, and married, in 1908, a daughter of the Master of the Jedforest foxhounds in the Scottish fells. Ogilvie’s poems were widely published. One collection of his verses, Galloping Shoes, illustrated by Lionel Edwards, was published in 1922. Other collections, Scattered Scarlet and Over the Grass, are other popular Ogilvie titles for foxhunters and are available through Amazon, ABEBooks.com, and other antiquarian booksellers.
Posted July 24, 2014