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HORSE & HOUND - SEPTEMBER

“Give a dog a bad name and…” and what? I have never heard the end of that saying. However you can call your curdog any damn thing you want from ‘Spot’ to ‘Towser’, through ‘Merrymaid of Majoribanks’ to ‘Twinkle’, but do not mess with hound names. Why not? Because they are traditional, that’s why. Why not mess with tradition? Because, if you have to ask the question, you would not understand the answer – what are you – New Labour or something? Oh dear! I shouldn’t be asked to write articles when I am tired and ill and suffering post surgical trauma… The naming of hounds is important because a Foxhound is an animal of enormous dignity and is far and away better bred than most of the humans who are likely to come in contact with it. It deserves a name in keeping with its station.

If you want a starter’s guide to hound names buy ‘Thoughts on Hunting’ by Peter Beckford. He has a whole chapter on Hound Names. How do you fancy – Fleec’m, Coxcomb, Dubber, Marplot, or even, Maggoty? The names available may be divided into several categories. Titles may be used, but a little caution may be advisable – you do not want your whipper-in going round bellowing at ‘Duke’ only to find His Grace breathing down your ear and wondering if there might be a problem? ‘Imminent’ would seem to be the answer. Nor do you want hounds called ‘Prince’ or ‘Queen’ for obvious reasons. Viscount, Marquis, Countess are usually safer, although that may depend on the quality of your local Countesses. Ranks (Colonel, Captain, Trooper) are usually very reliable, as are most adverbs and adjectives; always provided that anybody still knows the difference.

Now buy ‘The Book of the Foxhound’ by Miss Daphne Moore and if you are the bugger to whom I lent my copy, please return it. This is a beautiful book and also has a chapter in which the Great Miss Moore brings the Beckford list up to date. This was necessary, because it is no longer safe to assume that every (or indeed any) modern MFH has had a classical education – once a rich vein for hound names. There are also Beckfordian names that have quite simply fallen out of use since the C18th – who knows what a ‘Palafox’ was? I don’t for one and neither does Chamber’s Dictionary. Miss Moore also excluded ‘Rantipol’ which Beckford has as a Bitch name, whilst I have always understood it to mean a ‘feckless, or wayward, young man.’

Professions have always provided lot of names – Barrister, Chancellor, Lawyer and such like. I am minded of the huntsman, whose Master’s paramour was always getting in his way out hunting. He put on an imaginary bitch called ‘Harlot’ so that, in moments of stress, he could holloa out – ‘Look at that bloody Harlot – rioting again!’

Hound names need to be of two syllables for ease of emphasis and diction – I mean just try to imagine what the average kennel boy could do with ‘Scrofulous’ and no, I have to admit that I have never come across it as a hound name, or anything else come to that. However I do remember the problems that my Brother – in – Law (all bow) had with a French cross hound called ‘Tant Pis’ – his Kennel Huntsman went on strike and totally refused to name it at the puppy show.

I also got in trouble with names – especially after I went into a bit of Welsh crossing and thought that a few Welsh names would liven things up. They certainly did. I got a funny little whelp called Gwennol (Swallow) from Pyrse Williams of the Eryri. She was out of a bitch called Gwiddfid (they wouldn’t tell me) so you are starting to understand the problem. My senior Joint Master went all bolshy and said why couldn’t we have some proper old fashioned names – ‘Sort of thing I like, what?’ So I gave him Crumble and Crackling.

The late great Sir Alfred Goodson solved the language barrier very neatly, when he was sent a broken coated bitch found wandering on a Welsh mountainside – when asked for her breeding, he wrote on the form – ‘Evan Knows’.

There has been something of a vogue lately for naming hounds after famous foxhunters. I have no doubt that Foxhound kennels have their share of Wallaces and Beauforts. Some Letts would be nice, especially as he never found himself short of a syllable or two.

Sept 25th is the 85th Birthday of Benjamin. H. Hardaway 111, principle MFH in all the US of A. So let us have more Hardaways in the FKSB. You may think that I am embarrassing the poor man? Not a chance, he – ‘feeds on it like a tiger,’ as of course would Young Hedley. Now there’s a thought.

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