the difference between dogs and hounds

“You have to try it, Lilli,” Kim said. “It’s so much fun!”

Famous last words, I thought. Kim, Tamara, and I were at a horse show in southern Illinois, and some people we met at the show invited us to go fox hunting with them the next day. Kim and Tamara were all for it. I was less sure. I was tired, ready to go home, and afraid that my horse would trip on a log and break his leg. But, weak-willed as I am, I caved, and on Sunday morning we headed over to the property of the foxhunters.

There we met several other riders and six pair of dogs, and I was instructed in the ways of fox hunting. First, I learned that the dogs were not dogs. They were “hounds,” and calling them “dogs” was an insult to their houndliness. Second, I learned that the dogs – excuse me, hounds – always had the right of way. Third, I was told, always stay behind the master of fox hounds.

Finally we headed out. The property we rode on was a mix of forest and cornfields. The dead stalks from last season were still sticking out of the ground, and they crackled as the horses stepped over them. We went slowly at first, as we waited for the hounds to pick up a trail. On the way, I learned a little more about hunting from Tom, the master of fox hounds. Apparently, there were few foxes in southern Illinois, so the hounds usually caught the scent of a coyote. The foxes and coyotes were very quick, and this pack of hounds had never caught one, but Tom didn’t seem to find that particularly disappointing. “It’s just for fun,” he said. “If we killed the coyotes, we would have nothing left to chase.”

Then the hounds started baying, and we took off, trotting and galloping madly through trees, streams, and corn. I didn’t know how long we had been charging through the woods – five minutes? ten? – but I didn’t particularly care because it was fun. I wondered how I had managed to live for seventeen years without experiencing this wild hunt.

Then we cantered into a field, and I saw it – a coyote nimbly loping through the corn stalks. Tom told us to stop, and we waited for the hounds to catch up as we watched the coyote. It disappeared into a valley in the land, reappeared, and then vanished over the crest of the next hill. The hounds were about thirty seconds behind.

I remembered what Tom had said earlier – the foxes and coyotes are too clever; the hounds never catch them. It was clear to me in this instance that the hounds would never get this particular coyote. But if they did? Maybe not today, or tomorrow, but someday? How would I feel about that? I tried to picture the hounds chasing Sheba, my big brindled rescue dog of indeterminate breeding, and I couldn’t find a way to make that image fit. Yes, the hounds were chasing a coyote, not a family pet, and yes, coyotes and foxes were historically pests, which is why foxhunting became a sport, but they were all just dogs, basically. And it just felt so wrong for dogs to be hunting other dogs.

The hunt ended, finally, and the coyotes and foxes were no longer threatened by six pair of hounds and nine people on horses. We meandered back to the barn, Isaiah sweaty and breathing hard, me still exhilarated by our wild gallops. I knew then that I would go fox hunting again, because a horseperson, especially one stuck in limbo in her senior year, trying to move forward while the establishment says not yet, first you need to graduate, first you need to get good grades and follow all the rules, will take whatever excuse she can get to dash madly through cornfields and trees and brush. But I also knew that I wouldn’t forget the picture I’d conjured up of a pack of hounds chasing my terrified Sheba through the brush. And I knew that fox hunting would never again be as thrilling as it was that first time.