Biggles kicked things off by vomiting a pile of partially digested poo on our hall carpet. Known by more experienced Beagle owners as sh*tvom, this putrescent powerhouse took nearly half a bottle of “Wash and get off” to remove. Later the same day, Beanie decided to take a dump right in the middle of her heelwork-to-music class.

Mid-week, a pile of dirty washing was raided and a pair of pants was subsequently found to be lacking a crotch.

As the week drew to a close, Biggles nabbed a bag of donuts intended for the guys working on our garden. He managed to consume two of them (and by consume I mean basically swallow whole, one after the other) while Beanie got one. There’s no denying that two young Beagles can be a handful at times, but two young Beagles on a sugar high is something else! In a desperate bid to keep our house and our sanity intact, I bundled them into the car and drove off to the beach, hoping that a long walk would burn the sugar off.

When I got there I decided against walking on the beach itself, because the sea washes in a lot of junk and in their hyper state Beanie & Biggles would have grabbed and eaten just about anything. Instead I took them along the grassy embankment that borders the beach. At first it seemed like I’d made the right decision; all I had to contend with up there was frenzied lead tangling and the occasional attempt to roll in something nasty. Then I saw Beanie’s head all but disappear down a hole, while her bum stuck straight up in the air. When she emerged, she’d got something – there seemed to be some string dangling from the corner of her mouth. I opened her mouth, tugged on the string and became the not-so-proud owner of a used tampon. Lovely. Suddenly the sh*tvom didn’t seem so bad.

Once I’d got over the shock I attempted to hurl my unwanted catch into the bushes, but the wind caught it and carried it to within a couple of feet of where Biggles was. Ordinarily Biggles is pretty slow to react to something landing near him, or even on him, but sugar-powered Biggles was much sharper and he pounced on the tampon immediately. I got a firm hold of him, opened his mouth and just managed to grab the tail end of the string before the whole package headed south to join the donuts. I washed my hands pretty thoroughly after that walk, I can tell you.

Happily things went more smoothly over the weekend. Bundy joined us at flyball and did amazingly well, as you’ll see from the photos and video clips below. Just one more Beagle and the Lomond Flyball Club could have the UK’s first all-Beagle flyball team. It wouldn’t win any prizes, but it would certainly be entertaining to watch!

Bundy’s first ever flyball run

A couple of runs later and she’s got it!

Biggles’ steering was a bit wonky last week

This week, he’s like a harassed shopper; gets all the way to the store then forgets what he came for

Beanie has trouble when the ball gets stuck in the box

But a couple of rounds later she’s flying!

Some of the pics. First Beanie in full flight:

Biggles:

Bundy:

Click here to see the full set of pics and videos from Sunday’s flyball session.

Beanie & Biggles were initially a little overwhelmed by the huge gathering of dogs but once the walk got under way they got into the swing of things.

Obviously this was an off-lead walk for most dogs, and we were sorely tempted to let our two run free as well. It’s been quite a while since they’ve been off-lead together rather than singly -  the temptation to go off on their own high-speed adventures is usually too much for them to resist. This time however they seemed genuinely interested in joining their buddies Robbie and Sam, who are both pretty well behaved off-lead.

Robbie

Sam

Surely with them as role models our two would behave themselves? Eh, no.. not really. As soon as Susan unclipped their leads, they shot off down the beach straight past their pals. Little Robbie wanted to follow them but once he got  too far away from his Mum, he turned around and ran back. It could be said that our two did the same, if you allow for the fact that their idea of “too far away” is very different from ours!

The look on their faces says it all. “Yep we’ve been naughty, and it was NICE!”

Of course treats are nice too..

..but that mouthful of chicken comes at a price. Beanie & Biggles, you’re nicked!

That was the end of their off-lead antics for the day, but they still had a good time walking with the group. We even ran into a couple of other Beagles – two boys, both young like our two, but way, way larger. And much, much better off lead!

Yep, well behaved Beagles. Just rub it in why don’t you!

On the other hand, their hunting skills were woefully lacking. They completely neglected their woofing duties when some horses passed by, leaving Beanie & Biggles to do all the work. That’s a heavy burden on young shoulders, but they have a strong sense of duty, our two.

Given that we were walking with fit flyballing dogs there was bound to be some impressive acrobatics:

But even the professionals can get into squabbles about who’s supposed to be doing what!

After the walk everyone headed back to our house for hot cuppas and some nibbles. To avoid the nibbles being nibbled illegally I had to put Beanie & Biggles in their crates. They took this remarkably well, though there was a bit of wailing when the hot sausage rolls came out of the oven. They got even with me when we let them out of their crates though. There were a couple of sausage rolls and cakes left over from the gathering and I fancied my chances of polishing them off, but I didn’t realise I hadn’t closed the kitchen door properly until it was too late.

• “Hi Dad!”
• Leap
• Gobble

And it was all gone.

Flyball starts up again in February, and we can’t wait to see the gang again for our first training session of 2010.

The advice is simply this: when the bike starts to lean, correct it by temporarily turning the front wheel in the same direction as the lean. That’s it. Once you’ve got that idea loaded into your head, progress comes fast. I spent a little time in a deserted car park last night just practicing the balancing side of things, and ten minutes later I was pedaling. This morning we went for another practice session on a bike trail and by the end of it I was getting bursts of 1-2 mins without any mishaps. I haven’t  collected any new injuries either, though my arse is sore thanks to that medieval instrument of torture which is laughingly called a bike seat. Anyway, anybody reading this who also managed to survive childhood without ever learning to ride a bike will find the following link very useful:

http://www.hembrow.eu/personal/howtorideabike.html

I’ve still got a ton of photos from yesterday’s lure coursing to sort through and process before my next post, but for now here are a few snaps from a flyball demo we attended (but did not participate in this time) at James Lindsay Park, Baillieston. The demo was given by the Lomond Flyball Club, and here are a few shots:

Click here for the full set of photos

Beanie : 5.98 seconds
Biggles : 8.23 seconds

Tonight the jumps were set at 10 inches (which is Beanie and Biggles full jumping height). Their times were:

Beanie : 5.2 seconds
Biggles : 6.75 seconds

Which isn’t at all bad! There’s still lots of room for improvement with Biggles, but he’s still very young and as only recently started training properly.

As Susan is a member of the Glasgow Dog Training Club committee the whole family was roped in to some degree.  I had been asked to take photographs for the club website and Beanie and Biggles were featuring in the flyball demo which was being provided by their club – Lomond Flyball.

When I’d dropped Susan off at the crack of dawn the sites for the various attractions had been marked out but nothing had been erected. By the time I returned with Beanie and Biggles just a few hours later the change was amazing – stalls selling all things doggy-related had sprung up everywhere, enclosures were fenced off and ready to go and visitors were already starting to gather. There wasn’t much time to admire the transformation though, because the flyball demo was starting shortly and Beanie & Biggles were in it!

Given our two pups’ superb performance in a recent competition, I had been confident that they would play their part well. However, when I heard the music blaring around the main ring, pipe bands, cheerleaders and dogs everywhere  I was beginning to wish that Susan hadn’t said to quite so many people “Make sure you’re there to see Beanie and Biggles in the flyball demo – they’re amazing!”.

My fears proved well grounded as you can see in the following video:

We often joke that Beanie has a faulty nose as she’s often hopeless at finding things. But somehow she sniffed out  bonios in a rucksack from yards away. She remembered her training to a degree and when the time came for her first run she flew over the jumps and headed for the box to release the ball. But at the last moment temptation got the better of her and she sharply veered off to the right and made a bee-line for one of our team mates rucksacks. Club instructor Sarah quickly left her station behind the flyball box, extracted Beanie from the rucksack and prised a couple of bonios out of her mouth.

From that moment onwards, in Beanie’s mind the rules of the game had changed. A flyball run was no longer complete without a trip to the bonio rucksack! The audience seemed to thoroughly enjoy the chaos that followed.

Err.. the ball’s right here!

Little Robbie – one of the few who stayed focused on the ball

But eventually Biggles..

..and even Beanie managed to get it right!

The more advanced dogs followed and showed the spectators how it should be done.

Of course while the other dogs were running, our two weren’t quite finished letting the side down. What’s the most embarrassing thing that your dogs can do when you’re wearing your obedience club polo shirt and there are scores of people watching? How about a noisy round of play fighting while you demonstrate that you clearly have no control whatsoever over your dogs?

Fortunately order was restored fairly quickly.

Naughty? Who me?

After the flyball Susan had to rush off to work on the  ’Dogstacle’ or mini agility stall.  There was a gazebo beside the course so we popped Beanie & Biggles crates in there and settled them down for a nap while I went off to check out the other attractions.

The Dogstacle course was running throughout the afternoon and proved to be very popular – there was a queue at it all day long!

Beagles seemed to be very well represented and we even bumped into Thomas who we’d previously met at Beagle Racing. Here he is having a go at the Dogstacle course:

Sue and Kevin Rose (the couple that host the lure coursing events that Beanie and Biggles enjoy so much) came all the way from Rumbling Bridge to set up a lure coursing run, free for all visitors to try. Obviously there was only room for a short course, but still it was enough to give dogs and owners a taste of how much fun the full thing can be:

This fellow got the idea of chasing the lure straight away

Cuillin was also a natural (Cuillin’s mum plans to take him to the next event at Rumbling Bridge!)

But the best lure chaser I saw was Tess – particularly impressive given that she’s only recently returned to full activity after her spaying op!

The flyball team also set up a have-go course that proved to be very popular. Not all of the newbies managed to return with the ball on their first go, but at least none of them raided any rucksacks!

In the main ring there were presentations by the Greyhound Awareness League and Dog’s Trust:

..and a demonstration of heelwork to music:

This was followed by a series of very popular dog shows (including junior handler, pedigree and crossbreed categories) and finally a doggy fashion parade featuring the latest and greatest from The Pet Stop.

The Dog’s Trust also ran a Doggy Dash competition throughout the afternoon – a short, timed restrained recall with some handsome prizes going to the fastest dog. I fancied Beanie’s chances in this and before the competition closed I prised Susan away from the Dogstacle stall and we gave both Beanie and Biggles a chance at glory. They both ran well and came straight to me but sadly their times just weren’t good enough to claim any prizes – the competition winner was a very cute little 7 month old Tibetan Terrier who shot over the line like a shaggy, fur-covered bullet.

Lining the path between the various have-a-go events were a multitude of stalls. Some were simply aimed at raising awareness about animal issues, while others sold anything and everything from personalized gift cards to hand-drawn portraits and of course a wide range of pet products:

It’s just as well that yellow duck can’t read ;)

The time flew by and at 4pm everything came to a close. If the setting up of the stalls and enclosures had been impressive, the clean up operation was even more so. As the event was closing I took Beanie and Biggles up to the meadow for a nice walk while Susan was helping to pack everything up. I came back within an hour  and everything was gone and the park was left completely spotless. Well, perhaps not completely. One or two rawhide chews had been left on the grass, but fortunately Biggles was able to help with these. Beanie does the giant Bonios in other people’s rucksacks, while my boy takes care of stray rawhides. What a team!

As always, all photos of the event are available here.

Read more about Paws in the Park here.

They’re both taking part in the flyball demo at “Paws in the Park” at Rouken Glen Park on Saturday 22nd August (hosted by Glasgow Dog Training Club). And they might be going down to Yorkshire at the end of the month to team up with a couple of dogs from another team to do their first full ‘starters’ competition!

As they worked so hard last night we decided to forego today’s evening walk in favour of a leisurely swimming session at Allers Farm Kennels. It was a good call. It gave them a chance to really chill out and rest their joints whilst stretching out and gently working their muscles in the pool.

And finally here’s the now obligatory “Biggles looks crazy when he’s shaking the water off” shot:

We got there early and quickly met up with the others from the Lomond Flyball club. From what we’ve heard pretty much all dog competitions (probably all competitions period) involve lots of waiting about for your turn. And so it was with flyball, but it wasn’t too bad. Firstly, the competitors’ “camp” was a couple of minutes walk from the arena; it was calm, quiet and shaded by trees. The perfect place to chill out on a blanket and share a Coke or two.

There was room enough at the camp to put our two on long lines and kill some time with training and ball games. Then when they were ready for a quiet nap in their crates, we headed over to the arena to watch some of the action. The first thing that struck me about competition flyball was how high-tech it all is. The starting line is guarded by motion sensors that take the guesswork out of deciding whether a dog crossed the line too early, or which team finished first.

The high-tech start line

But methods for catching your dog after a run are refreshingly low tech.

The second thing that struck me about it is that it can be very noisy. Some of the teams wailed like banshees as their dogs were queued up for their runs. Supposedly it’s done to psyche the dogs up and make them run faster. I don’t know if it works, but to me it just sounded like they all needed to switch to decaff and avoid orange juice for a while.

Before long Lomond Flyball Club’s main team got to do their thing. They’d already had some runs before we arrived and had won them all. Clearly they were still in fine form, because they won this round too!

And the video of the Lomond Raiders in action:

Still with a couple of hours to go before our turn, we killed a bit more time watching a football match on a pitch that sat directly between the camp and flyball arena. Now I’m no football fan so I can’t comment on the standard of play, but I’ve seen enough TV and films over the years to recognize bad acting; every time the slightest contact occurred between players one of them ended up rolling on the ground in agony as though he’d been disemboweled with a blunt penknife. I’ve seen more convincing depictions of pain from William Shatner in Star Trek the Original Series (and yes I am including even the more embarrassing episodes in that assessment).

Another medical emergency on its way

Finally we heard over the PA system that the main competition was nearing its end, meaning that the newbies or “starters” would be getting their turn soon. We roused Beanie & Biggles from their peaceful slumber and put them on their long lines for a warm up.

When we’d first arrived it had been a clear, sunny day. Now it was cloudy and uncomfortably close – conditions that often seem to make scents and other distractions more appealing to our two. We started having concerns about the flyball arena – it wasn’t completely fenced in, and there was a busy road running along the side of the park. What if our pups got wind of something they wanted to chase and darted out towards the road? Our fears soon faded away though; they were fantastically well behaved on their training lines and gave us their full attention. I started to get the feeling that this could go well!

We headed over to the arena and officially entered our dogs in the Starters  competition. As we watched the first few runs and waited for Beanie & Biggles to be called up we both confessed to feeling a little nervous. It was silly really – we were surrounded by familiar faces from the club and club instructor Jennifer was handling the flyball box at the end of the run. The only way it differed from a normal training night (apart from there being lots of spectators) was that our two would be running in quick succession one after the other.

The Starters competition worked like this: each team got a practice run up the course, then three official runs against a rival team in the other lane. The team with the most wins would go through to the next round. As it turned out our first round was against another Starters pair from our club, and they were good – much faster and more experienced than us. That didn’t matter a jot to us though; we just wanted to get one clean run from our two doglets to prove that Beagles really can do flyball.

In view of this, our strategy was really simple:

• Biggles would go first in each run, otherwise he could get distracted by his sister running past him on her way back with the ball. Beanie on the other hand was much less likely to get distracted.
• I’d hold Biggles just a couple of yards from the start line and not release him until I saw the green light on the board. That may seem like a no-brainer, but in fact experienced teams usually start further back from the line and release their dogs before the green light. That way the dog is at full speed and about to cross the line just as the light turns green – thus eliminating the initial start up delay.
• Susan would stand with Beanie close behind us and wait until Biggles was out of the course and on his way to me before letting Beanie run. Again, this is the opposite of what experienced teams do; they release the next dog before the first dog has returned across the line. If they judge it right, the first has just made it out of the course as the second dog enters, already running at top speed.

Here is the result: our first ever round in a flyball competition:

Despite a little hiccup in the practice run (by Beanie!) our brilliant little Beagles completed every official run cleanly. We didn’t win our round of course, but who cares! We saw all kinds of mayhem with some of the other Starters teams but our two did it right every time, and that made every minute of waiting worthwhile. As we headed out of the arena we could hear comments about Beanie & Biggles’ great performance – I don’t think anyone had seen an all-Beagle flyball team before.

We hung around for the rosette and certificate presentations. The main Lomond team did very well, coming second in their division. Here are some more piccies of the team in full flight:

After the long drive home Susan let our flyball pros into the garden while she prepared their (rather late!) tea. I couldn’t help commenting on how proud I was of little Biggles in particular. He’s been going through a bit of a teenage rebellion lately but we’ve persevered with his training and it’s amazing how much it’s turned him around.

When Susan called him in for his nosh, he took his new found obedience to the next level. You see, just as his bowl was being filled he was busy squatting for a number two, but when Susan called him he came without hesitation. Any less obedient dog would have finished what he was doing before heeding his owner’s call, but not our little boy! He trotted straight into the kitchen with an extra brown tail still dangling from his bottom.

Is that a well behaved Beagle or what?

Here’s a clip of Beanie and Biggles in action:

And Tess, Clara and Tara doing exceptionally well considering it’s their very first lesson:

Beanie and Biggles are entering their first flyball competition this weekend. It’s a pairs competition in Dundee. We’ve still to think up their team name, but we have already got them kitted out with colour co-ordinated team harnesses and cooling jackets. It should be good fun!

On Friday we gave each of our little terrors separate walks in the park with the two of us. Beanie got the first shift – we felt that it would be better to deal with her while we were both “fresh”. That was a good call. We threw everything we had into holding her interest when she was offlead; we both ran around like crazy with our improvised lure (tea towel on a string), we played puppy ping-pong (recalls between us as we were running), we played hide and seek, and in between each game we aimed to have her back on lead and happily chewing away on her “pizzle” stick (infeasibly large dried bull’s penis). Throughout it all the goal was to make being with us more exciting and rewarding than a solo sprint round the park. Some of the time we succeeded, but she still managed to notch up a few adhoc tours of the countryside. It was exhausting, but by the time it was over we felt we’d made some progress.

A sublime moment of calm as we let the pizzle stick do the job of holding Beanie’s attention…

Next up was Biggles. He could easily have taken advantage of our weakened post-Beanie state, but instead our gentle little boy was mostly content to trot around having the odd sniff. With one minor exception he scarcely went more than 50 yards away from us for the whole walk.

The tea towel lure was a big hit with Biggles

A rare sight: a beagle off lead and walking to heel

We took him down to the river to escape the heat and threw treats into the water to tempt him in. Historically Biggles hasn’t been too successful at fishing out the treats. It’s not that he’s afraid of the water, it’s just that he’s completely hopeless at tracking the treats as we throw them. In the past I’ve thrown fish pieces right in front of his nose and once I even managed to hit him square in the body with a Winalot Shape (one of the charcoal fart-inhibiting variants that I usually try to hold back for our loose sphinctered little boy). Each time he just look dazed and confused while Beanie eagerly cleaned up around him. Today though he was on better form and finally seemed to be getting the hang of it all.

Biggles wasn’t completely angelic though. He got a bit carried away as he chewed on the pizzle stick and his extending lead came in for some friendly fire.

Truly, butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth!

The same can’t be said for his extending lead..

And finally, here’s a brief glimpse of the latest must-have sportswear for the fashionable Beagle: his and her doggy cooling jackets.

That’s not Photoshop trickery! They’re the real deal, hand crafted from Debenhams towels, complete with special fabric labels that were created on our inkjet printer. Susan made them up after we got a good tip from one of the trainers at Beanie’s flyball club: a great way to keep a dog cool on a hot day is to put a loose fabric jacket on them and douse it with water – evaporation quickly takes the heat away.  The slogan on the labels was of course inspired by the very the same over-zealous mastication that led to the early demise of Biggles’ extending lead.

Unfortunately it wasn’t to be. We’ve had a lot of new dogs joining the club recently and whilst there is some real talent some are still a little unruly. Little Beanie has born the brunt of a few ‘fouls’ in recent weeks. She’s still very young, and also very small compared to the other dogs. So we felt that it wasn’t in her best interests to race again until things settle down.

Beanie and Biggles took the news in their stride – trophies and titles mean nothing to Beagles. They just enjoy the thrill of the chase. But poor mum and dad didn’t take it quite as well. Fortunately we had a great weekend to make up for the disappointment.

On Saturday morning we headed to the park as usual. Within moments of letting Beanie and Biggles off lead the familiar “aaaarf, aaaarf, aaaarf” started up – in stereo. This could only mean one thing – both Beanie and Biggles were hot on the tail of a fast dog. And sure enough when we looked around we saw Beanie disappearing over the horizon, hot on the heels of a lurcher. And bringing up the rear (not that far behind either) was Biggles. The lurcher was really shifting, but Beanie managed to keep her in her sights. After what must have been a mile or two of sprinting around the meadow Beanie finally wore down the lurcher and moved in for the kill (well, a sniff and a play):

Later in the day we headed off to Allers Farm Hydrotherapy for a swim session with buddies Cullin and Jamie. I’ve never seen Beanie or Biggles swim so well! Beanie was in the pool for a good 40 minutes playing fetch with a sausage loaded tennis ball. I had difficulty getting her out when it was time to go home. Biggles didn’t stay in for as long, but he too is getting very confident – and he’s a cracking little swimmer now!

Today we went to flyball. And as luck would have it our teacher, Sarah, had decided to do time trials. Paul took all of his cameras along and we managed to get excellent footage of the dogs. Here’s our two little hooligans in action:

Beanie managed a very respectable 5.98 seconds and Biggles set a new Lomond Flyball Beagle boy record with a whopping 8.23 seconds!

I’m amazed at how quickly Beanie has learned to do this. She’s only had a few classes.

Biggles doesn’t yet do flyball properly – he’s too young. Mainly we work on teaching him to retrieve the ball. But he gets a couple of goes at running the course over low jumps in classes. Until now it’s been very slow and puppy-like. But he surprised us today with a couple of glimpses of real athleticism.

Although most of the time he was busy trying to figure out why daddy (his usual handler) was standing on the other side of a fence with a camera and how he was going to take the ball back to him so he could get his treat.

Here are some more shots – first some of Beanie & Biggles’ classmates:

And finally a couple of pics of the advanced class in action: