Last year passed without any major vet visits for the Beanster, but she’s more than made up for that in 2013 and the year’s barely got started.

This latest saga began with us noticing that she was holding herself a little funny one evening, didn’t seem keen on doing a full body shake, and couldn’t get comfortable anywhere. The next morning she became frantic, sprinting round the house and throwing herself against walls. Needless to say an emergency appointment was made, and off we all went to the doggy doctor. As is tradition, Beanie temporarily forgot about her symptoms while in the waiting room and used the sacred Beagle biscuit dance to score some treats . Once in the examination room the symptoms returned however, and the vet homed in on Beanie’s back, locating what appeared to be a tender spot. She got a painkilling injection which quickly made her more comfortable, and over the next couple of days she seemed to be recovering, though her ability to shake never fully returned.

Then, with the 2013 vet bill still safely below £100, Beanie had a sudden relapse – in fact if anything she seemed worse than she had been before. We took her back to the vet and a tender spot was once again found on Beanie’s back, but further forward than last time. She was given a powerful pain killing injection and yet more pain killers were prescribed, along with enforced crate rest for the remainder of the day. If she was not significantly improved by the next morning we were to bring her back for an x-ray, to consider the possibility of crumbling discs (apparently a failing in Beagles, though not ncessarily UK Beagles) and arthritis. Frantic Googling ensued when we got home, and though neither disc problems nor arthritis fully matched Beanie’s symptoms we couldn’t help being very worried about her. To heighten our worries, Beanie’s pain killing injection also had a sedative effect. This wasn’t truly apparent until I gently carried her into the garden to attend to the call of nature and saw her staggering and wobbling as she tried to squat. The vet got an anxious phone call about that one, I can tell you!

The next morning, after scarcely any sleep, I got her out of her crate and chauffeured her to the bottom of the garden for her first toilet duties of the day. Being Beanie she naturally found fault with the spot I’d chosen for her, and insisted on wandering round and round until an appropriate location was found. By now she was trotting relatively normally and I began to entertain the hope that maybe we could avoid another visit to the vet. She responded by scenting a chunk of bread just under the fence in our neighbors garden. She lunged for it, stuck her head under the fence and grabbed the bread before I could stop her, and of course a few minutes after that she was once again in severe discomfort. Vet time, obviously, again!

This time we got the most experienced vet in the practice. The problem now seemed to center around her neck rather than further down here spine. We left her at the practice for a an hour or so for x-rays while we took poor Biggles for a walk. Although it was Beanie who’d had all the pain and discomfort, The Bigglet had also suffered these last few days – from lack of attention. Despite this, he’d behaved himself very well and hadn’t taken advantage of Beanie’s weakened state, though he had nicked a few things from the top of the console table in our hall. But nobody’s perfect, right?

The wait for the x-ray results seemed to stretch on forever, but finally we were called into the examination room to get the verdict. Being a superstitious Yorkshireman I couldn’t help but expect the worst. In my head, Sod’s law dictated that my little girl, at just five years old, must have the worst spine problem possible. I just wanted the vet to break the terrible news quickly, but she was keen to give us a step by step presentation of the x-rays. As each image passed by without any abnormalities, I became certain that the next would be the one to drop the bomb. It was like being in a classic Hollywood suspense flick. A series of potential scares would heighten the tension then abruptly dissolve away, softening us up for the final knockout blow. Luckily for us, that knockout blow never came. Beanie had a neck strain and some associated stiffness in some of her muscles, but there wasn’t anything seriously wrong. Apparently her spine was not made out of chalk after all.

In due course the Beanster was brought out us. I expected her to be frail and sleepy from being anesthetized, prodded and poked, but no. This was best we’d seen her in the last few days! Wagging, moving smoothly and intent on investigating everything in her reach. I picked her up before she could do any mischief, buried my nose in the fur on the top of her head, and breathed in her subtle houndy scent just like I did the very first time I held her as a pup. The relief from my brief dose of aromatherapy coupled with the better-than-hoped-for-diagnosis made it so much easier to part with the huge cost of all this medical attention.

“Beanie’s going to be OK? Take my credit card! Take it and do your worst!”

And they did. My wallet wasn’t the only thing feeling flattened after this little adventure though. Still reeling from lack of sleep and the rollercoaster we’d been on, we were good for nothing but sleep. Little Beanie has put us through the emotional wringer so many times now that we just refer to the process as being “Beanied”. Compared to his sister, Biggles has been the dream Beagle. His best effort so far was to swallow half a kilo of grapes, and that’s barely on the radar compared to all of Beanie’s misadventures.

A few days on from all the drama and Beanie’s improving steadily. All in all, life’s pretty good for her right now. She gets the cosiest beds made up on the sofa, regular massages from Susan, and a dose of tasty painkiller each morning with her breakfast. Of course it’s not all good; she has to refrain from activities that involve rapid or extreme neck movements, so retrieval and tugging games are out for a while (it would also be better if she didn’t keep lunging for fallen crisps and food wrappers while on local walks, but you can’t have everything). Also, the chauffeured toilet visits are over. When nature calls, she’s back to slumming it just like her brother.

Beanie on her sick bed

That mark on her nose is dried hot chocolate, gained when she lapped up the dregs from a cup

Beanie’s injury must be taken seriously at all times, but it’s open season on the frozen peas her Mum uses to ice a strain after returning from the gym!

Package therapy, Beagle style

As to what caused the injury, I guess we’ll never know for sure. A little while back she did suddenly take off on a sprint while on lead and was brought to a sudden and violent stop by her collar. That can’t have helped. Also, Beanie has never really been capable of doing anything at a moderate effort level. If she chases, it’s at full speed. If she’s going to retrieve her ball, she has to do it in the most over-the-top acrobatic style. On top of that we’ve been letting her daily exercise slip over the last six months or so, and as any physio will tell you, you can’t lead a sedentary lifestyle yet go hell-for-leather at the weekend without picking up some injuries along the way. With that in mind we’re going to make sure that as she heals, her body is once again fit enough and strong enough to handle her madcap ways.

During the past fortnight everyone in our house has been struck down by illness.

The first to succumb, somewhat predictably, was Beanie. One day, shortly after her morning walk, she vomited up  her breakfast and promptly lost her appetite for food and water. Usually loss of appetite in a Beagle is a sign that something is very wrong, but Beanie has a history of being very sensitive to sick tummies so we bravely delayed any vet action for 24 hours. It turned out to be the right call because the next morning she had a drink and a little nibble of chicken. From there she rapidly returned to her normal self, whereupon Biggles did a couple of highly unpleasant barfs in our bedroom. He never lost his appetite though, and to be fair his bout of sickness could simply have been an attempt to make the carpet smell right after I’d given it a thorough wet clean at the New Year.

Once Biggles was back to full health we had maybe two days of normality before it was our turn for illness. Thankfully we didn’t get a vomiting bug, but we did get a really vile cold. Borrowing terminology from the camera world, I’ve been referring to it as a “bridge” cold; in the same way that a “bridge” camera sits between a point-and-shoot and a DSLR,  this cold was way worse than normal sniffles but didn’t quite have the knock-you-on-your-arse power of full-on flu.

Susan got it first, and a few days later it got its claws into me. Things were OK while at least one of us was feeling on top of things, but inevitably there was an overlap point where we were both suffering, and that’s when the house became a bomb-site. In our weakened state we got lazy about putting things away and tidying up after ourselves, and Beanie & Biggles took full advantage. At one point nearly every square foot of floorspace had some kind of Beagle-generated debris in it. There was ripped up mail and Amazon boxes , bits of socks and assorted underwear, and lot and lots of shredded tissues. Quite why a snot-filled, screwed up tissue is such a prized item for a Beagle I’ll never know, but it is.

Of course for every five (or maybe ten) naughty things they did, they’d each do something really endearing. One morning when I had the shivers, Biggles climbed into bed and reverse parked himself into my arms. He pushed his back against my stomach and tucked his head under my chin, warming me way better than any hot water bottle. I dozed off, and when I woke up he’d moved so that his arse was right under my nose. And yes, even with my cold, I was able to detect his farts.

On another occasion I was so choked up with mucus that I couldn’t get to sleep in our bed at all. I figured that the best way to get at least some shut-eye was to stay in the lounge watching the TV and deliberately try to stay awake. Typically this is a recipe for snoozing, for me at least. Sure enough I nodded off a few times, and the next morning I was very gently woken by Beanie. She’d moaned at Susan to let her out of her crate then trotted through to find me and check that all was well. No other dog in the world does greetings as sweetly as the Beanster: there’s no licking, she just reaches up to put her front paws on your shoulders and ever so gently touches her nose against yours while wagging furiously.

Anyway, despite this attack of the lurgi I still managed to get a few shots of the pups that are worth airing..

I’ve been trying to improve my running speed despite a series of niggling injuries, and my current favorite workout is “30:20:10″. You start with a warmup, then jog for 30seconds, run at race pace for 20 secs, and sprint all out for 10 secs. Repeat this a few times, then jog for a couple of minutes to recover and do it all again. And again. Since you’re always changing pace the training session flies by, and there’s none of the anticipation/dread that normally builds up prior to a more conventional speed workout. The problem – as ever – is finding the time to get all this training in whilst still doing work and other daily routines like dog walks. With that in mind I decided to combine one of my 30:20:10 workouts with my weekly 10k with Beanie & Biggles on the beach.

It was a brave decision given that structured exercise and Beagles generally don’t mix well. In the past I’ve taken Beanie & Biggles along on hill sprint sessions and ended up either grinding to a halt half way up the hill with my legs tied up in their leads, or arse-surfing down the hill when they decided that my recovery jog to the bottom should be a desperate sprint. This time however, things went smoothly. Beanie, and especially Biggles, quickly settled into the rhythm of the workout.

After the first couple of repetitions I started adding a verbal cue to each phase: “Easy!” for the jog, “Running Pace!” for the next gear and “Turbo!” for the sprint. There are no prizes for guessing which part my two pups liked the most! Every time I shouted “Turbo!” Biggles would bay his head off and shoulder-charge his galloping sister.

Adding to the fun & stimulation of the constantly changing pace were the many obstacles that the tide had deposited on the beach. We regularly had to leap over tree trunks and branches, and there was also a car seat (!!??), a microwave (with missing door), a green wellie, the rear section of an old CRT-style TV and an assortment of holed tubs and buckets to go over and around. At one point we had to cross a stream made by a sewer or drain outlet. Beanie and Biggles leapt across in perfect sync, while I couldn’t quite make the distance and got a soaking wet foot. Fortunately a subsequent sniff test of my shoe discounted the theory that the stream was run-off from a sewer, so no harm was done. By the time we got back home I felt that I’d drained my batteries pretty well, and I figured that Beanie and Biggles would happily nap the afternoon away leaving me in peace to get some work done. That’s probably how it would have turned out too, if hadn’t been for a spot of drama over Biggles’ “cot”.

The cot came into being when a spare duvet was temporarily dumped into one of the baskets in the living room, instantly turning it into the most sumptuous Beagle bed ever.

It didn’t take long for the duvet to get a bit grubby, but a bit of muck never bothered a Beagle!

Biggles immediately took a shine to this new super-luxury bed, so we started referring to it as his “cot”. Initially this didn’t cause any conflict because the ever-antisocial Beanie prefers to be up on a sofa securely wrapped in her blanket, only emerging from her cocoon to empty an unguarded cup of tea or vacuum up the crumbs left from a TV-dinner. Today however, perhaps still feeling the stimulation of the beach run, it suddenly occurred to Beanie that she might be missing out and things quickly got noisy. She complained at Biggles solidly for ten minutes, then when he left the basket (either to escape her moaning or for a drink, I’m not sure which) she climbed in and tried to claim it. He responded by woofing of course. When that didn’t work he lured her into a play fight which sent cups and remote controls flying and left the hall rug at a very jaunty angle. Tails were pulled, ears were nibbled and eardrums were burst before we eventually got the two of them to calm down. The end result? Well Beanie was cocooned on the sofa once again, and Biggles was back in his cot. He looked so sweet in there that Susan commented she should really have a teddy bear to cuddle. Well we didn’t have a teddy bear to hand, but we did have “Toby” the little soft toy Beagle, so…

He genuinely seemed to like having his little cuddly companion with him in the basket

Even holding on to it with his paws as he rolled over

Beanie of course wasn’t impressed by any of this, and Toby had another brush with death when she got hold of him..

Little Miss Jealous-Belly plots her revenge

And has a Hannibal Lecter moment..

Happily Toby escaped undamaged, which is more than I can say for Biggles’ street cred.  Do other four year old adult male Beagles like sleeping with a Beagle-teddy?