That’s the deep, contented nap of a boy who has pulled off the most technically demanding, physics-challenging and artistic poop known to Beagle kind. I hate to admit it, but it far surpasses even Biggles’ best efforts – though it was The Biggly Boy’s tutelage that undoubtedly laid the foundation for Monkey’s faecal triumph.

We were in a woodland area of one of our local parks. As is his way, Monkey had already let loose with a couple of decently-sized but otherwise unremarkable number twos; bulging around his back passage signalled that number three was on the way. As we walked past a tree he looked like he was beginning a squat, but he didn’t drop straight to target depth – instead he kept shuffling his feet, executing what I soon realised was a precision docking maneouver that would have made NASA proud. He reversed his bum really, really close to the tree – so close that I feared the bark might seal his opening – and then instead of lowering into a deep squat he raised his rear end as far as he could, kind of walking it up the tree. When he reached his maximum height he began to push, all the while maintaining pressure against the tree surface.

You know those gel stamps that leave a circular patty of slow-release, fresh-smelling cleaning agents on the side of the toilet bowl? Well this was essentially the same thing, only bigger, brown colored and definitely not fresh-smelling. When he’d finished Monkey didn’t even turn to examine the result – he didn’t need to see it to know it was good – but Daisy and I stood and marvelled. After a second or two Daisy went in close for a sniff. I didn’t, but I was severely tempted to whip out my phone and take a snap. I wish I had; moments like this are what make me proud to be a Beagle daddy.

Oh Monkey, I’m so proud to have you as my brother!

Thanks Daisy. It’s just what I do.

Also I have really big balls.

A video and a few more shots to finish. As you can see, Daisy’s respect for Monkey was shortlived, and was followed by humping attempts, chases and wrestling.

Why is it that so often when Monkey’s having a crisis, the humies around him burst out laughing? To be fair his most recent brush with Monkeycide did have me concerned for a few seconds, until I worked out what was actually going on.

We’d just started our walk, and I noticed that Monkey was really lagging behind, holding himself strangely and not moving normally. It looked like maybe he was in pain, and the way he was hunching up had me thinking that his back was hurting him; there are certainly plenty of Beagles with back problems. I think I said out loud “Oh please no” and then suddenly he sat on the ground in a very lazy puppy sit, as though he was about to scoot, but he didn’t scoot – he just sat there. I bent down to check him out, and then I realised the true cause of his distress. In our part of the world we get a particularly pesky species of insect during summer; they don’t bite, but they harass you continually, buzzing away as they circle your head and repeatedly dive-bomb your ears, your nostrils, your eyes, try to get into your mouth and land on you. Once you’ve got a group of these annoying little buggers interested in you, they’ll stick with you for miles and often the only way to get any peace is to kill ’em. The good news is they only seem to be a problem for around six weeks and usually they’re done by mid-July, but this year they’re running late.

As soon as I got close to The Monkster I saw and heard a few of them buzzing round him, but they weren’t interested in his head; instead they were harassing his bum hole. I couldn’t help but laugh, which Monkey didn’t appreciate at all. He gave me a particularly pathetic, hurt look and I could almost hear him say “Oh thanks Dad. Yeah, thanks a lot for laughing at me in the midst of my very serious predicament!”. I took pity on him and tried to swat the flies away as best I could, then Daisy came to help out by trying to catch them. Unlike Beanie before her, Daisy’s actually pretty well tuned for hunting things and I think she nabbed one of them. Regardless, our joint efforts distracted the flies enough to continue on our journey, but of course they kept coming back to do flybys of Monkey’s sensitive exhaust port.

“I know Monkey, I hate them too, but if they stay with us all the way back home I’ll hit the little buggers with spray and we’ll have our revenge!” I said to comfort him, and it did seem to help; he looked back at me gratefully and was decidedly more stoic for the rest of the walk. Those flies did indeed follow us all the way round and right back into our garden, but they’d split by the time I came out of the kitchen armed with fast knockdown spray. Or, just possibly.. Daisy got the lot of ’em!

Yummy, yummy, yummy, I’ve got flies in my tummy :)

Speaking of Daisy, she’s responsible for the second “howler” of this post, in fact she is the howler. Daisy’s really found her voice this year and she’s not afraid to use it; she’s become almost as vocal as Biggles, always alerting the world to latest infringement  of Beagle Law committed by the neighbors, by delivery guys, and by sheep, cows and birds. Let’s face it pretty much anything can get the howl machine going. In the following video, the very first snippet is on Loudoun hill, and in the very top-left corner you can just see the trigger for the noise pollution: another walker was by the summit trig point and had decided, somewhat oddly, to lay on his back and waggle his feet in the air. After few rounds of verbal abuse he stopped, but of course Daisy didn’t and Monkey kept supporting her even though he clearly had no clue what all the fuss was about!

We’ve actually had a summer! It seems like it’s pretty much over now, but we’ve had one, and Team Beagle has made the most of it. Each immature crab apple that’s fallen from the tree has been grabbed, thrown back into the air and rolled on multiple times! No fresh tea towel has stayed long in our kitchen drawer before being nicked and paraded round the garden!

Over the last few weeks Daisy has become my bathroom buddy, always following me into the little room. I wish I could say she’s doing that because she loves me, but the truth is it’s all about my pants, or more specifically the pockets in my pants. The moment I drop my trousers for my daily constitutional, a snout is pushed into the right hand pocket where I usually keep a handful of biccies. It’s very cute, but it doesn’t help me accomplish the task I went in there to perform; sometimes a degree of concentration is required to get the job done – so to speak – and wiggly little Beagle girls are not at all conducive to this.

As for Monkey, well he’s become much better at nicking things from the kitchen. Just this morning he scored a sizeable chunk of butter – complete with it’s wrapper – and every missing tea towel has been his work. He nicks ’em from the kitchen, then Daisy nicks ’em from him and does a high speed tour of the garden. For some reason the tea towels seem to happen most when I’m working on the garden. It’s as though an unspoken conversation goes on between us:

Me: OK pups I’m just going out and mow the rear lawn now.
Monkey: Right Dad, just give me a second and I’ll get the tea towel!

To be honest I don’t think Monkey really understands the conventional uses of tea towels; I mean obviously they’re needed if you’re mowing the lawn, but also he brought one out when I was painting the deck railings with preservative, which was just plain silly. I tried to explain that to him but the grin on his face replied “I can’t help it Dad! I’m a Monkey Dad!”.

More summer moments:

On hotter days tasty frozen ice cubes have been greatly appreciated – even by Monkey, once he got over suspicion that they were some form of Monkeycide!

It’s alive! That tea towel is alive! But Daisy can fix that…

More crab apple fun

I think you’re supposed to catch it Daisy, not wear it..

Beware! Low flying Monkey!

This humping thing is more complicated than it looks. First you’ve got to get the right end, then you’ve got to find some way to climb up..

She’s doing it again Dad!

Chillin’ and letting it all hang out..

Snoozes in the shade..

Daisy keeps a lookout while Monkey attempts to use his bed-making skills on the chair.

Once settled in the chair, one must keep a suspicious eye out for falling leaves (and tiny crab apples)

Too knackered to do anything! Maybe this whole summer thing is overrated..

And finally, a quick blast of summer flowers..