yes, the General was Master of the local foxhunt and responsible for the pack of hounds bred for fox-hunting.
If he had lived through the previous war, he would have known the hunt would have to be be stopped because of the war, probably because there would be no young men to take part in the hunt. Also, if food was going to be rationed, they couldn't justify feeding a pack of hounds that weren't being used.
The hounds are bred specifically for hunting and spend most of their short lives in crowded kennels. They are not suitable as family pets or for any other practical purpose. As soon as they pass their prime, or develop any infirmity or injury, they are put down. Vets bills are not wasted on keeping them alive.
If the hunt was going to be stopped for only a year or two, the hounds would be considered useless by the end of that time. So a callous decision would be made to kill them.
As a previous poster said, 'having to put the hounds down' may have been an ironic expression used by upper-class people for the worst thing that could happen in their privaliged lives.
Poor old Richard refuses to acknowledge all the awful things happening in the world, and even admires Nazi-ism to some extent (as a lot of people did). It's only when he hears that the hounds ar being put down that he wakes up to the fact that life will not be the same again. Upper-midle class Brits do tend to care more about animals than people.
At the moment in Britain, attempts are being made to ban fox-hunting. Legislation went through a couple of years ago, but there are loopholes and some of the hunts are still challenging the law.
One of the arguements used by the pro-hunting lobby was that packs of hounds would have to be destroyed across the land and they tried to use this to get sympathy for their cause. In reality, the dogs are only bred for hunting and have sad and short lives anyway. So it was a bit of a cynical arguement.
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