UK – NEWS AND COMMENT: Fox hunting hounds from the High Peak Hunt, out exercising with two supervisors in Bakewell, Derbyshire, spotted a cat on top of a garden wall having got ahead of their two mounted, supervising riders. One of them jumped up onto the wall. The cat jumped off and dived under a car. The dog crawled under the car, clamped its jaws around the cat’s belly and dragged her out to where the dog shook the cat vigourously.

Fox hound in Canada. Photo: Ruff Start New Beginnings on Facebook.

By the time the owner (and others?) managed to get the dog to release their cat she was gasping for air and within 60 seconds she died. A spokesperson for the High Peak Hunt said that it was extremely rare this sort of thing to happen and that the dogs were out for a routine exercise supervised by two professional Hunt staff. They apologised.

The League Against Cruel Sports report that during the cub-hunting season, from August to the end of October, it received 11 reports of pets being chased or injured by hunting hounds. During the last hunting season which ended in March, the league received 18 reports of domestic cats being chased or injured by hounds.

Two years ago a pack of fox hunting hounds charged through a cat sanctuary in Sussex terrifying the 60 cats there who fled for their lives. It happened during feeding.

The hunt said that they are reviewing their procedures to try and avoid this sort of incident happening in the future.

A local anti-foxhunting group were hoping that somebody took photographs or made a video of what happened because for them this is a classic case of how foxhunting can go wrong and they want to use any available video material in their campaign to stop trail hunting. Foxhunting with dogs is illegal in Britain but they use scent trail hunting instead. Sometimes, it is alleged, that fox hunts take place illegally when they mask the true foxhunting by trail hunting. It’s all a cat and mouse game between anti-foxhunters and those who enjoy the bloodsport.

Comment: the hunt spokesperson said it was extremely rare but it appears not to be according to the reports.

Story: MSN reporting from The Independent newspaper.