"David Rendel, MP, voted to have us all shot"

That was the shocking sign on the front of a make-shift kennel at the Royal County of Berkshire Show. David Rendel voted for a ban on fox-hunting, and how do the hunters retaliate? They make outrageous claims such as this. Now I believe everyone has freedom of speech so if they wish to protest then they have every right, but they can not just make facts up. David Rendel was showing his support for a proposal to reduce cruelty to animals, not shoot dogs. Worse still when the MP in question went to the protestors he made a point of listening to their arguments and comments and then put forward his own ideas and comments, but they were not prepared to listen. In fact things started getting abusive.

What does that achieve? What do they think they were going to gain by being offensive? If they have such a good point to make then they should be able to make it and let the power of their words do the job, but they simply do not. There is nothing good that can be said about fox-hunting. One of the demonstrators was quoted as saying,

This is true, fox-hunting goes back a long way. So too does wife-beating, rape, murder, mass genocide... But they have all been made illegal as there is good reason to. The fact that it is old does not make it right. He went on to say,

I suspect that the National Trust would hate to be associated with the mutilation of any wildlife. But that's not the point. The point is that it's such an outrageous claim! The National Trust is set up to maintain the countryside, the wildlife that inhabits it and areas of outstanding beauty. Fox-hunting is all about the destruction of a single species that inhabits that countryside, the roots of which go back to the days when foxes used to kill the chickens which were an integral part of our food supply. These days foxes are not the same problem that they were back then. Foxes, in fact, naturally prey upon Rabbits which are more of a nuisance than foxes ever will be.

But let's get one thing straight. I have nothing against these people dressing up in silly clothes and riding across fields in hot pursuit. I've got no quarrel with them playing their strange games. I just see no reason to tear a small creature apart at the end of it. Feel free to carry on chasing across the fields, but leave the foxes alone. To them it's "just a fox", but that fox could very well have a litter of cubs. That fox will have been chased for miles and miles massively outnumbered by vicious trained hounds and people on horseback. When it is eventually too tired to run any more it is torn apart by the dogs. If it flees to its den, its one safe place they will dismount their horses and get a spade to dig it out. That's sportmanship that is. You can see why fox-hunting is classed as a sport.

And what about the dogs that David Rendel apparently voted to have shot? They are the ones sent down the hole to kill the fox. Many hounds are lost this way by getting stuck down the hole where they will be left. If they don't get stuck, more often than not they will receive nasty facial injuries from the fox desperately defending itself, and possibly its off-spring. These "sportsmen" really know how to look after their "tools" - and let's be honest here, that's essentially all they are to the fox-hunters.

You want proof? Well let's go back to the title of this blog again. David Rendel voted against fox-hunting and the fox-hunters retaliated by saying "well if we can't fox-hunt then we'll have to shoot all these innocent dogs". Why would they have to shoot them? They claim that they are born killers and wouldn't make good pets. Okay I agree that's true, but they're only born killers because the fox-hunters have spent years training them to be that way. The dogs can be retrained to take part in other less violent and more humane sports, or simply looked after and allowed to grow old and die like all other creatures on the planet. But that's not how the fox-hunter mentality is. They are no longer needed, so they must be disposed of. That is not David Rendel's fault. That is the fox-hunter's fault.

Again the same gentleman:

If I ever catch anyone tearing a fox limb to limb then they'll wish the authorities caught them first.

Finally the absurd retort that oh-so-many fox-hunters use is "all you city dwellers just want to spoil the fun of us country dwellers." I live in the countryside and I want fox-hunting stopped. ASAP. Tomorrow. Today. Yesterday. Last week. Just stop it. It's not a sport, it's evil bloody cruelty. If Joe Bloggs were to declare that stamping on kittens' heads were a sport would that be ok? No. It would be cruelty to animals. Likewise fox-hunting is.