There are lots of wonderfully evocative words and phrases that they can use to stir the imagination :

…disembowelled, …torn apart…, …fighting for its life…, … eaten alive…

They are actually quite clever, because whilst the words say one thing, they actually appear to say something much worse

And the reason, as usual, is that they want to disguise the reality that lies underneath.

The fact is that a fox hound is three or four times the mass of a fox, and is extremely powerfully built.

A single foxhound on its own is perfectly capable if killing a fox in seconds.

A pack of foxhounds will kill it even quicker.

You look at any film of hounds killing a fox – the anti’s seem to get plenty onto the TV – and record the time from when the first hound touches the fox to when the fox is definitely, undeniably dead.

You will not find one that takes more than a few seconds.

A few seconds. How many? 5…10…20…30…?

Now just think about all the other ways there are to die.

How many of them are that quick?

How many of them result in either quick death or total escape unharmed, with no capacity for "shades of grey" in between?

 

Being killed by hounds is certainly a gruesome, bloody and violent way to die.

And, I have no doubt, that, whilst it is happening, it is probably extremely painful.

But : it is very, very quick, and there is no margin for error.

And when it comes down to it, in terms of animal welfare, this is more important than what it looks like to a third party.