Sandy, Bedfordshire: In death, the animal, a victim of illegal hare coursing, had never looked more alive, its forelegs stretched, ready to run
The warning signs first appeared last autumn on an estate five miles west, mounted on the kind of boards that might advertise a village fete. Two had been banged into the ground at the points where footpaths through woods spilled out into open farmland. Call the police if you see anything suspicious, they said.
Just before Christmas, the threat came closer; a gamekeeper on another estate three miles away told me he had confronted a gang of men. And now, in fields a 10-minute walk from home, where the shooting leaves of summer crops looked like a thinly sown lawn, we were being wagged at and licked by a rottweiler-mastiff cross. The dog’s big feet suggested the owner was not knowingly exaggerating when he said it was only half-grown.
