We frequently drive past nearby Loudoun Hill and on Sunday we decided to enjoy the views from the top. We parked up at nearby Darvel to walk along the old railway line to the hill – a round trip of about 7 or 8 miles.

Loudoun Hill from the old railway track near Darvel

While we stopped to take the photo above Beanie and Biggles began frantically rolling in the grass. A closer inspection revealed the reason for their enthusiasm:

The well rotted carcass of a sheep

The smell was vile and we spent the rest of the walk trying to stay up wind of the pups. We tried to get them to roll in cow dung in the hope that it would mask the smell of death but our Beaglets were very proud of their lovely new scent and didn’t want to spoil it.

The old railway closed in the 1930′s and now it’s just a grass track running through farmland. We stopped several times to admire the views.

There were lots of stiles to lift our stinky pups over:

I was half way over this one with Beanie when Paul spotted the notice advising walkers to take a detour to avoid the horse.

We took the alternative route which took us through a field alongside the railway track. Just moments later the meanest, biggest, angriest black stallion appeared on the railway track. Beanie and Biggles barked frantically and the horse pounded it’s hooves and galloped up and down the railway track looking for a way to get through the fence. I’ve never seen a horse look so menacing.

We moved on briskly. Loudon Hill was now getting closer.

As we approached the hill we left the railway track to walk along farm roads. The fields were full of cattle – young males I think. They were all very interested in Beanie and Biggles and came stampeding over to the fence for a closer look.

Eventually we got to the hill. It’s a short but steep climb up and the views from the top are amazing.

The Battle of Loudoun Hill was fought in May 1307 between a Scots force led by Robert Bruce and the English commanded by Aymer de Valence. It took place beneath Loudoun Hill, and ended in a victory for Bruce. There’s a plaque to commemorate the battle at the top of the hill.

This one’s looking back towards Irvine bay (where we live):

Peek-a-boo!

We spent about an hour on Loudon Hill chatting to other walkers. We then retraced our steps back to Darvel and our car. I was a bit nervous about crossing the field beside the black stallion and sure enough, he was lying in wait for us. I was convinced he was going to jump the fence to get to us at one point. And of course, Beanie and Biggles wound him up by barking. A few minute after escaping the stallion we heard a drumming of hooves….LOTS of hooves. A herd of cattle stampeded over to get a closer look at our very noisy Beagles. Fortunately there was a fence separating their field from the railway track!

I’m sure they were just curious, but the jostled and pushed to try and get close to the fence for a better view. Every so often they’d charge away from the fence and then come stampeding back. It was quite unnerving being so close to them. And of course, Beanie and Biggles continued to bark, howl and bay. But there was a fence there. Nothing to worry about. And then…..

….the fence stopped. We were in the field with a herd of large cattle that were hell bent on getting a close look at our noisy hounds. We legged it up the steep railway embankment and fortunately most of the cattle stopped following. One particularly curious one followed us for a while but he eventually gave up.

A lovely walk, but watch out for the farm animals!

We had a little celebration, actually kind of an agility party, a couple of days ago when the weather was behaving itself. While we were putting up the balloons and agility equipment, Biggles made himself comfy on a couple of canvas chairs we’d left outside to dry after their thorough soaking at lure coursing on Sunday.

The chairs are kind of wobbly and I didn’t think he’d be keen on them, certainly Beanie wasn’t, but he loved the way the seat bottom molded to his shape. They do have one major design flaw though:

Comfy seat – but I can’t reach my beer!

We had two guests for the party, fellow Beagle Bundy and Ru. They each had a go at the agility course and did very well, albeit with a couple of false starts.

What do ya mean I’m supposed to jump it?

OK, got it!

Just like Beanie & Biggles, Bundy had absolutely no fear of the seesaw

Ru was a natural at the jumps!

Obviously no birthday party would be complete without a cake – a sardine cake in this case!

Of course any time you get three Beagles round a table with a tasty, smelly cake on it you can’t really expect to see good table manners.

It’s impolite to howl when the service is a little slow

One shouldn’t chew with one’s mouth open

I’m sure there are also rules about not resting one’s chin on the table..

..not swallowing one’s food without chewing it at least once

..and not proceeding to consume one’s plate immediately after finishing one’s cake

The noise those three Beagles made was deafening. If I ever get to see a full pack of working Beagles going on a hunt I’m going to need earplugs. And through all this, Ru sat quietly by his owner’s side and didn’t misbehave once.  Non-beagle owners have no idea how easy they’ve got it!

Despite the noise and dodgy table manners, I couldn’t help feeling proud of how Biggles has turned out. He’s come on in leaps, bounds and boings since we got a little help with his possessiveness. Admittedly the life expectancy of teatowels, toilet rolls and dishcloths is still rather short in our house, but Biggles is now far more willing to give things up and follow our directions even when there’s no immediate reward in sight. As far as I’m concerned he’s the best Beagle boy there is!

Beanie took to it straight away but Biggles needed a little encouragement. I don’t think he was scared of it, he just doesn’t see the point in jumping through something when it’s easier and just as quick to go round it. In some ways I’m starting to think he might be the smarter of our two Beagles after all..

Anyway, after the agility practice we headed up to Irvine moor to catch what is perhaps the biggest day of the Marymass festival. The previous Saturday we got to see the Festival of Light Procession and the fireworks, this time there was a huge  parade, horse racing and – my personal favorite – the climbing of the greasy pole!

The parade:

The horse racing. Not ordinary horses mind you – these were huge cart horses thundering down the track:

The greasy pole. Teams have to climb a thick, grease covered pole to retrieve a huge chunk of ham balanced on the top. How hard can it be? Well in this case, it proved to be very hard indeed:

Did they succeed? Well..

That’ll be a “no” then.

On Sunday we headed up to Rumbling Bridge for another lure coursing session. The forecasts had promised at least some decent weather but it didn’t work out that way:

Is it still raining Beanie?

Despite the rain, our two had some great races. I was really interested to see what would happen in the first one, where Beanie & Biggles got to race each other. You see last time hosts Kevin & Sue had changed the course and for the first time ever Biggles legitimately beat his sister! He just religiously followed the trail of tripe juice left by the lure, whereas Beanie tried to go too fast and lost it every time the lure changed direction.

Would Beanie avoid overshooting the corners this time? Would Biggles repeat his success?

Well, “yes” and “yes, sort of”. Beanie did a lot better on the turns this time, and Biggles did get to the lure first, but only by missing out half the course. Beanie took a slight lead down the first straight but as they approached the corner Biggles disappeared from view. I glanced round the course and finally located Biggles’ cheeky little white bum a couple of hundred yards across the field, waiting for the lure to catch up. And, as happened many times before, when it did catch up it caught him by surprise and he missed his chance to grab it.

He gave chase and arrived at the finish first, but his cheating ways (or tactical thinking if you prefer) earned him a disqualification. His other races all went the same way, but given that he was the one who consistently got a mouthful of tripe-soaked lure, I figure he went home feeling like a champ!

Thanks to Biggles, Beanie got through her first round, and I think a further round, before coming up against a rocket powered whippet. She ran her legs off, and bayed her head off, but it didn’t get her through to the final. On the other hand Kevin let her poke her snout  into the tripe juice jar for a brief but heavenly sniff, so you could say she came home a winner too.

Some more shots from a great, if rather wet, day of lure coursing:

Oi! Gimme that lure back!

The full set of shots is available here.

Paul had Beanie and Biggles attached to his canix harness. I set off running dragging a lure soaked in a mixture of aniseed and vegetable oil. After giving me a head start Paul and the Beaglets set off in search of me. I try and change direction when I am out of sight of the dogs in an attempt to loose them. They use a combination of scenting and sight to find me. Here’s a short video of them in action:

Sue and Kevin Rose are holding a lure coursing meeting on Sunday 22nd August – all welcome. More info on their blog.

Paws in the Park is on at Rouken Glen Park on Saturday 4th September. Lots of activities to try including lure coursing, agility, agility dash (no skill needed, prize for the fastest dog) and flyball. More info on the Glasgow Dog Training Club website.

Then on Sunday 5th September Sue and Kevin are holding a special lure coursing meeting to raise money for charity. This will include fun races, fun dog shows etc. Again, more details on Sue and Kevn’s site.

Regardless, there’s folk singing, parades, strange contests (greasy pole climbing and “duck races” anyone?), a festival of light procession and a firework display.  We quite fancied the festival of light and the fireworks, but these are hardly suitable for doggies, so much of the day was spent getting them nice and tired out so that they’d happily nap through the distant bangs & whizzes in the evening. We took them for a long walk on Irvine moor – the site of the firework display – and gave them lots of play time in the garden.

As the evening grew closer they could tell from our preparations that something was afoot, but they still managed to get themselves thoroughly tired out and happily went into their crates for a sound nap. As soon as they were settled, we headed off to Irvine moor.

Earlier in the day the moor had been empty save for a lone van and a guy slowly assembling the firework gear, but now the area was buzzing with people, music and fairground activities. As darkness started to fall people lined the streets around the moor, and the fairground music gave way to the  drummers in the festival of light procession.

Almost as soon as the procession ended, the firework display began. A selection of well chosen Jean Michel Jarre tracks came booming out of the loudspeakers, and the sky lit up:

MaryMass 2010 Firework display from Paul Roberts on Vimeo.

It was really, really impressive. Of course once it was over we had to find our way back across the moor to our car in pitch darkness. Fortunately there were plenty of young Jedis ready to illuminate the path with their lightsabres.

When we got home there were no obvious signs that Beanie Biggles had been distressed by the fireworks, but they did greet us very enthusiastically. Beanie put her paws up on our shoulders and kissed us both, and Biggles wagged furiously. It was late, but we couldn’t really put them back to bed without a little something to chew on…

Now remember this is the same Beagle that redefines the word disgusting. I’ve seen lots of David Cronenberg films, but on walks her actions still leave me struggling to hold on to the contents of my stomach. If there’s something really vile on the pavement that even I can smell a mile off, she has to stick her nose right in it for a power sniff. If there’s some dog, sheep or cow poo around she’ll eat it. Or roll in it. Or both. But for some reason, tonight our little princess reached her limit and I couldn’t help but laugh. Of course right after that I put my own foot in a juicy turd, which I guess made us even.

Beanie, recovering from her poo trauma

We only have 5 jumps (although I’ve ordered another 6 and a tyre jump) so we had to adapt Luisa’s plan a little. Here’s the course that we came up with for yesterday’s practice:

And here’s the video of Beanie and Biggles running the course for the very first time. I was very impressed!

Today I decided to design my own course. I wanted to give them a nice long straight at the start and finish so they could really stretch out and pick up speed, but a little bit of complexity in the middle. Here’s the plan.

And the video of their first attempt at the course.

For the first time since we started doing agility I know what we can and can’t do and what we need to work on!

We’ve found that Beanie and Biggles do best if training sessions are very short (5 – 10 minutes max) and agility practice is very sporadic (perhaps once every three weeks). In between practice sessions we’ll occasionally pop out to work on a little drill for a minute or two. Any more than that seems to be couner-productive (although that might change in future). Yet they always amaze me with their progress from one practice session to the next. I guess a lot of skills from other activities are transferring to agility (and vise-versa).

So, that’s the equipment packed away for two or three weeks – after doing so well I think they deserve a bit of lure-coursing next!

Butterfly stroke over the long jump!

Beanie and Biggles gave it a quick try out when the rain stopped and gave it a big thumbs up.

The dog walk.

And the A-frame. Having looked at these pictures all I can say is it’s a good thing my dogs don’t go in the direction I point!!!

Biggles has never seen an a-frame before and it looked quite high….

But our intrepid little biglet was soon scrambling over the top.

Finally, the double act.

Ooeew – smelly!