Summer’s pretty much over now but by way of compensation it’s blackberry season once again! One of our regular walks is virtually lined by blackberry bushes and Beanie and Biggles have been honing their picking skills.

There’s berries in them there bushes!

Beanie quickly became adept at picking only the ripe, tasty berries and dodging the red immature ones, but Biggles got off to a slower start. He’d sniff and lick at them but then hit me with his “little boy lost” look, goading me into picking them for him – which being a complete muggins I of course did.

Those berries look and smell really nice..

..but The Bigglet wasn’t sure about the whole “self service” thing initially

After a few days he gained confidence and started picking his own, but it still took a while longer before he learned to go for the black ones and leave the red.

Eventually he caught up with Beanie and this point I’d have to rate them both as expert pickers – so much so that I considered hiring their services out to local farmers. Unfortunately my latest dreams of wage-earning Beagles have been scuppered due to one small but important technicality: apparently fruit pickers are not supposed to eat everything they collect.