FARMERS WALKING PUPPIES. 395 



than a young foxhound, who appears to be able to 

 do everything but speak, and even that he can do 

 in a mute way, for when he is greatly troubled, he cries 

 like a human being, with real tears. I am thinking as 

 I write of a young Cottesmore pup I was walking at 

 Melton Mowbray who, when a friend accidentally trod 

 on his foot, came yelping up to me for sympathy with 

 big tears rolling down his face. When I picked up 

 this heavy lump of dog and soothed him, he at once 

 stopped his yelping and his tears like a child. 



Mr. Otho Paget in his interesting book, Httnting, 

 says, " The whole future success of your breeding 

 hounds rests on being able to get good walks," and 

 in order to ensure such success, he advises generosity 

 in the matter of prize giving at the annual puppy show 

 and the luncheon on that occasion, to be *'as smart and 

 festive as you can make it." Mr. Paget considers that 

 the ''ideal home for a puppy" is a farmhouse; but 

 even if this statement were correct — which I greatly 

 doubt, seeing the poverty of many farmers and 

 the neglected state of their own domestic animals — few 

 farmers walk foxhound puppies even in classic 

 Leicestershire. When a large landowner, good 

 sportsman and lover of hunting like the late Duke 

 of Rutland, makes an agreement with his tenant- 

 farmers to walk puppies, the work is certain to be 

 carried out in a give and take manner which will 

 cement good feeling between both parties, and will 

 promote sport ; but the practice which obtains in 

 some badly managed hunts of sending a whipper-in 



