And they call it puppy love

To many, and this includes those who ‘hunt to ride’, they ‘ain’t nothing but a hound-dog’, a friendly face at the meet and then a pack in the distance, their presence only occasionally acknowledged by the huntsman’s cheer and horn. To the hound purists, however, they are the very foundation of the hunt, both on and off the hunting field, and no one, save the huntsman, his Masters and staff, take more pride in them than their puppy walkers.

Like the hounds themselves, puppy walkers come in all ages and from all backgrounds. Some have done it on their farms for generations, others, wishing to show more commitment to their hunting, have brought them home perhaps as a companion to young children

When Claudia FitzHerbert, the granddaughter of Evelyn Waugh, came from London to her Devon home with her twin boys, aged 10, she did not know how to keep them amused. The Tiverton foxhounds duly obliged, with Butler and Buckshot. “I had never had a dog before,” recalls FitzHerbert, who often wrote about their antics column. “The huntsman would come with flesh and the bones in the courtyard were like an elephants’ graveyard. Then they would take off, visiting my neighbours like ‘The Tiger Who Came To Tea’.” Once, when I went to visit them, the twins, Ivo and Xavier, had made them painted paper name collars, each with a garland of daisies. “They were the best fun ever,” she remembers. “The day they had to go back I lay in bed until the tears filled my ears.”