Our Mission

The Hound Welfare Fund is a registered non-profit charity that provides food and veterinary care to retired hounds from the Iroquois Hunt Club, who are not covered under the club’s budget once their hunting years beagle1 are over due to age or injury.

Founded in 2000, the HWF also provides a model for other hunts in the United States and abroad that wish to provide comfortable and dignified retirements for the hounds that make their sport possible.

The HWF:

Puts 100% of all donations directly to the hounds’ care,
Is a 501 (c) (3) foundation, meaning your donations are tax-deductible,
Has no paid officers or staff and is run entirely by volunteers.

The HWF and Iroquois Hunt Club are located in Lexington, Kentucky.

Our Program

The Iroquois Hunt’s retired hounds live alongside the active hunting pack in kennels at Miller Trust Farm. The kennel space, kennel staff time, and kennel overhead costs (electricity and water) are donated to the HWF, which pays for the retired hounds’ feeding and veterinary care. The retired hounds generally number about 20 hounds in any given year. The Iroquois Hunt generally breeds only one litter a year.

Like the active hunting pack, the retirees have access to:

Ample daily turnout in a fenced 20-acre area that includes a pond, woods, and open pasture,
A kennel area with a dog door allowing them to go in and out at will,
In the evenings, when the active pack is in for the night, the retired hounds can come and go as they please between the kennel and a fenced two-acre paddock,
A climate-controlled area with heat in the winter and air-conditioning in the summer.

Iroquois Bonfire '98: Retiree of the Year for 2008-'09

dog Neil Coleman, huntsman of the Cottesmore in England, bred Bonfire. She arrived in Kentucky as a puppy and spent her entire 10-year hunting career with Iroquois, during which time she became the undisputed favorite of huntsman Lilla Mason. Bonfire retired in September 2008 to live out her days at Miller Trust Farm in Lexington where both the Iroquois pack and the retired hounds are kenneled.

Invitations to her retirement party at the Lexington Country Club were among the top-selling items at the Hound Welfare Fund benefit auction in March 2008, and the event did not disappoint. Bonfire arrived in style in the passenger seat of a Porsche and posed for photographs in the club. Sadly, Bonfire did not have a long retirement. Earlier this year, she was diagnosed with cancer, and she was put to sleep in May.

The HWF thanks Peggy Maness at Peggy Maness Photography for the photos on this page.