beagling

As part of my dissertation research I went out beagling with someone a friend put me in touch with. I never saw myself in a million years going out 'hunting' but I actually had a great day - the hounds track an artificial scent rather than an animal. The Hunt Masters (the ones in the incredibly English-looking green jackets) and Whips keep up with the hounds on foot, so my day turned out to be 4 hours of chasing a pack of beagles up and down a field. I didn't get many great pictures because I didn't want to take my nice camera anywhere near this weather & mud so I've only got a few shoddy phone pictures but they give a pretty good depiction of what the day was like. The dogs were so cute - I met a couple called Pebble and Pembroke who stayed back with us most of the day - when I asked if it was because they were tired I was told it was actually because they're puppies and they don't really know what they're doing yet - so they just think they're running about in a field for the day for the hell of it. Fantastic.