…I’m tired and I want to go to bed!

The last few days have been absolutely exhausting for us, and probably for Beanie too. Our little pup has become very confident in her new home, and has quickly exposed the many weaknesses in our so called “puppy proofing”.

It started in the living room. She discovered all the little places that have exposed wires and embarked on a chewing frenzy. We tried a chew deterrent spray which kind of works, but has to be reapplied every few hours to remain effective. A trip to our local DIY store turned up a better solution. We bought some plastic conduit which looks neat for cables in very visible areas, a length of plastic hose to protect less visible cables, and some gaffer tape that is a reasonable match for the color of our skirting boards. We bound up and rerouted all the cables we could, and used the gaffer tape both to hold them in place and to camouflage them a little. Finally, we blocked access to the rear of our TV using a pair of cheap notice boards. This worked very well – Beanie stopped hunting down the wires, and immediately turned her attention to the fake coals in our gas fire. So, another trip to the shops and we had a cheap but quite presentable fire guard. Thankfully that’s put the coals out of reach.. so far..

Even as we were battling to make our living room safer, Beanie began probing our garden perimeter for areas of weakness. A little digging and she almost made it to freedom – Susan spotted two back legs and a tail about to disappear under the fence and dived to catch them. So off I went to the DIY store again, returning with sheets of wire mesh and a staple gun. An hour later and I felt sure our garden was finally escape proof. Beanie thought otherwise, and quickly showed just how strong a determined beagle pup can be by tugging parts of the mesh off the fence. So now the rear of our garden is lined with plant pots, rocks, bricks, even an upturned bucket – anything and everything that can prevent access to the lower edge of the fence. This finally seems to be up to the task of containing our tricolored Houdini.

OK, so that’s the bad stuff. On the plus side, Beanie’s house training is going very well. During the day we take her out very regularly, and certainly after feeding, after waking from a nap and after an energetic play session At night, we’ve come to trust Beanie to let us know when she really needs the loo. This is happening twice a night, but with two of us to share the load it’s not too bad. So far we’ve had no night time accidents, and only a couple during the day (due to us not paying enough attention).

Also, we’ve taken Beanie to our favorite park and discovered that regular dog walkers are generally a really nice bunch. We’ve been given a lot of good tips, and Beanie’s had lots of socialization. At one point, she was proudly walking alongside a fine looking adult Alsatian called Sabre.

There was one other outing of note, though it comes with some embarrassment for me. We took Beanie to a nearby Pets At Home store – one of the very few shops that welcomes dogs. Beanie was coping well with the explosion of new smells, sights and sounds until we rounded the corner of one isle and ran into a Great Dane. Beanie was clearly awed by this giant, and after a timid meet and greet one of the shop staff noticed a little puddle on the floor. Like an overly protective Dad I commented “I think that was the Great Dane, it certainly wasn’t ours”. Yeah right. That Great Dane probably pees enough to make Noah nervous. A little puddle? That’s got scared beagle written all over it!