last chance hounds
Working My Way Home
Teagan, celebrating her fourth birthday on her first hunt. Mom has the lead line, but our author took over on foot and learned a lot of hunting wisdom from her youthful charge. / Lori Brunnen photo.
This is a foxhunting forum and I do realize that is what readers come to read about. Still I would like to share one personal thing. My husband of forty-two years died on June 10th, 2018 just four months after being diagnosed with an inoperable malignant brain tumor. His name was Rick. Four months of disbelief, struggle, suffering, and finally grief. Moving to a new place last September with the horses following in December left me missing the first half of the 2019 season as well as the last half of 2018.
In Strange New Territory
Liz Callar photoIt is hard to believe now, but at the start of the 2017 hunting season I was actually lamenting the difficulties of leaving a hunt I had been with for fifteen years and joining another. Even at the time, I realized it was a small issue in the scheme of things that can happen in life. Making new friends and riding across some breathtaking new country quickly proved to me that I had made the right decision.
That season started out well. I was hunting regularly, and in October, Karen and I traveled with the Last Chance Hounds to the Moore County Hounds Hark Forward Foxhound Performance Trials in North Carolina. By January, however, hunting was the last thing on my mind. And I never did get out after that.
Moore County Hound Trials: Report From the Field
“He’s hunted twice; let’s take him to the Field Trial.” Author Lori Brunnen in the foreground, riding Sunny. Saved from the abattoir, he took to the hunting field like a veteran. Karen Miller accompanies Lori. / Amy Gesell photo
Since last year I have been trying to hunt with George Harne’s private Maryland pack, the Last Chance Hounds. This season I finally managed one day out with them and had a great morning, despite having Frankie’s bridle slip off, falling flat rectifying it, and finally being dragged a ways on my stomach. At least I did not let go. It was kindly described at breakfast as being “seventy-five percent elegant.” This is a small, close-knit group, and I felt lucky to have been able to join them.
Shortly after this outing I learned that friend Karen Miller was accompanying them to the Moore County Hound Performance Trial, an MFHA Hark Forward event in North Carolina the second weekend in October. We agreed to drive down together. The six hounds entered were traveling with huntsman Lisa Reid and whipper-in Marie LaBaw. Master George Harne was driving down with his friend, Roy Good, leaving at 1:30 Friday morning because George said he would be “too excited to sleep” anyway. Lisa and Marie were leaving at 4:30 Friday morning. Despite the fact that the first trial event was not until 4:00 pm Friday, Karen and I simultaneously agreed we were leaving at “10 o’clock Thursday morning.” No getting up in the dark unless absolutely necessary. This is an annual trip for the group but the first Performance Trial for Karen and me. We were stoked.
