The First Hunt with The Berwickshire
& Borders Bloodhounds

The Joint Masters wanted to show their new bloodhounds for the first time at the hunt's Open Day which was planned for Sunday 11th August. While the four couple of bloodhounds have been on regular hound exercise with the foxhounds for a few weeks, they had not been hunted together as a pack. It was decided to have a couple of days unofficial hunting just to see what they would do. The first hunt took place with hounds meeting at Reedy Loch on Sunday 28th July in the evening. David Law and Derek Anderson "volunteered" to be the first people to be hunted and a small group of people were invited to witness the event.

The Spectators assembled on the "grandstand" as David and Derek set off ,and the hounds were taken to their starting point about fifteen minutes later. Master and huntsman Jeremy Whaley was feeling very nervous as they approached the line as no hound seem to be particularly looking for a line. However within a couple of minutes of crossing the line, Flora and Ronald opened with beautiful voices and Tinker, Tailor, Platter, Chelsea and Betsy joined in as they flew onto Kelloe Mains and back without a check. They caught up with their quarries, one and a half miles later, back at the water trough on Reedy Loch.

The first hunt of the Berwickshire and Borders Bloodhounds was celebrated with a glass of champagne, but the hounds prefered the water!

One more unofficial hunt took place from the kennels on Thursday 8th August. This time David Law ran on his own, once again a one and a half mile circuit on Manderston. Scent was not quite as good as on the previous occasion, but this ensured that we not only had an enjoyable ride, but were also able to see some interesting hound work. On this occasion Molly joined the pack and contributed some excellent work on a couple of checks.

At the Open Day, the fact that the hounds would be hunting was kept a secret, and the bloodhounds and horses were removed from the kennels before the visitors started to arrive. At approximately 3.00pm the proceedings were brought to a halt as David Law and John Willis appeared running over a grass field past the kennels. ten to fifteen minutes later the hounds appeared, speaking well, and hunted their quarry back to the kennels. The bloodhounds were then taken into the Puppy Show ring where they were given a warm reception by the large crowd attending the Open Day. "This is part of the Berwickshire Hunt's future" said Jeremy Whaley MFH, "not the entire future. The Bloodounds are diversification, not a replacement for the foxhounds", he went on to tell the audience. Jeremy explained that the foxhounds would be used within the law as a gun pack until such time as the cruel scottish legislation, which has turned fox control into fox extermination, is overturned in the courts. When this is achieved the Berwickshire Hunt will hunt two days a week with the foxhounds and one day a week with the bloodhounds.

The Berwickshire Hunt is the oldest pack of foxhounds in Scotland and now it is the first pack of bloodhounds in Scotland. In fact it is the first hunt in Britain, if not the world which offers more than one type of hunting. This would not be possible without the support from our landowners and famers. We are deeply grateful to them for their support in the past and we hope they and others over a wider area will support our new venture.