YOUR reader Cathy Garlick (Your Letters, April 30) and the Countryside Alliance would do well to dismount from their high horses for long enough to consider how to manage their situation when an outright ban on hunting with dogs becomes law.

The problems, as I understand them, are:

Unemployment for some people. This happens inevitably in industry and lessons have been learned and new jobs found.

What to do with foxhounds? They can be trained to follow a drag if it smells of fox.

The social aspect. Why should it be altered for a drag hunt?

The thrill of the chase. Ah there's the rub! This brings to light the barbaric, instinctive blood lust latent within the apparently civilised mind. Should we not be aiming to outgrow the primitive urges of our hunter-gatherer stage of evolution?

Of what use is Christianity without compassion? But do we hear the 'angry prayers for little hunted hares' that the poet Ralph Hodgson called for from the parson in the pulpit or from religious speakers on Thought for the Day? Not that I've heard!

It would make good sense if we all pulled together to outlaw hunting with dogs in line with other cruel sports such as bull and bear baiting and dog and cock fighting.

SHEILAH FIELDING, Kempley Green, Dymock.