HOW refreshing to read A Pilkington's comments (Letters, September 12). It makes a nice change to hear the voice of reason in the matter of using dogs to hunt foxes -- arguably the most humane and natural method of control in which the fox is either killed outright or makes a clean get-away.

Unlike the use of rifles, where the conditions have to be just right -- a fox standing in plain view, in the middle of nowhere so bullets cannot ricochet and in addition, the fox must obligingly keep still so that careful aim can be taken, which is not very likely.

Those who oppose foxhunting are the cruel ones because there is no more humane alternative.

JANET KIRKHAM, Butterworth Brow, Brinscall, Chorley.