LETTER VI 



AFTER the young hounds have been rounded and are well reconciled 

 to the kennel, know the huntsman, and begin to know their names, 

 they should be put into couples, and walked out amongst sheep. 



If any be particularly snappish and troublesome, you should leave 

 the couples loose about their necks in the kennel, till you find they are 

 more reconciled to them. If any be more stubborn than the rest, you 

 should couple them to old hounds rather than to young ones ; and you 

 should not couple two dogs together, when you can avoid it. Young hounds 

 are awkward at first ; I should therefore advise you to send out a few 

 only at a time, with your people on foot ; they will soon afterwards become 

 handy enough to follow a horse ; and care should be taken that the couples 

 be not too loose, lest they should slip their necks out of the collar, and 

 give trouble in catching them again. 



When they have been walked often in this manner amongst the sheep, 

 you may then uncouple a few at a time, and begin to chastise such as offer 

 to run after them ; but you will soon find that the cry of ware sheep, will 

 stop them sufficiently without the whip ; and the less this is used the 

 better. With proper care and attention, you will soon make them ashamed 

 of it ; but if once suffered to taste blood, you may find it difficult to reclaim 

 them. Various are the methods used to break such dogs from sheep : 

 some will couple them to a ram, but that is breaking them with a vengeance : 

 you had better hang them. A late lord of my acquaintance, who had 

 heard of this method, and whose whole pack had been often guilty of killing 

 sheep, determined to punish them, and to that intent put the largest ram 

 he could find into his kennel. The men with their whips and voices, and 

 the ram with his horns, soon put the whole kennel into confusion and 

 dismay ; and the hounds and the ram were then left together. Meeting 

 a friend soon after, ' Come,' says he, ' come with me to the kennel, and 

 see what rare sport the ram makes among the hounds : the old fellow 

 lays about him stoutly, I assure you. Egad he trims them : there is not 

 a dog dares look him in the face.' His friend, who is a compassionate 

 man, pitied the hounds exceedingly, and asked, if he was not afraid that 



some of them might be spoiled ? ' No : d n them,' said he, ' they deserve 



it, and let them suffer.' On they went : all was quiet ; they opened the 

 kennel door, but saw neither ram nor hound. The ram by this time was 



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