The conversations I have on dog walks often start with: “Beagles aren’t they? You rarely see them nowadays.” I tend to disagree; I regularly see other Beagles when we’re out on our walks, in fact there are two other Beagles that I know of in our small village, and we’ve just discovered that one of them – a cute little boy –  shares one of Daisy’s behavioral foibles.

Historically whenever we’ve met him we’ve been going in opposite directions. We stop, sniff and tangle leads, swap stories of naughtiness, then continue on our way with minimal difficulty. During a recent walk however we found ourselves behind him and travelling in the same direction. With about a hundred yards between us, the boy’s owner stopped to chat with another dog walker. Initially the boy was distracted by sniffs and wasn’t aware of us, but in their desperation to meet him again Monkey and Daisy began crying and whining. The boy heard them and locked attention on us; in response Monkey and Daisy began pulling like trains and in no time at all we’d caught up to him.

The usual greeting rituals took place and in due course the boy’s owner and I decided that we’d each better crack on with the business of getting home. We tried setting off at the same time, but this wasn’t really viable as the lane was quite narrow and there was still sniffing and lead tangling going on, so I held back to let the boy and his owner get ahead.

This didn’t work either because the little boy wasn’t at all keen to leave Monkey and Daisy behind. He applied his emergency brakes, bracing all his paws to resist the pull of the lead, and after a moment of struggling his owner said:  “Maybe you should take the lead!”

“OK, but I think that could be problematic too!” I replied, knowing that Daisy was about to demonstrate her own version of emergency braking. I only got three steps ahead before I felt the lead go tight and heard the dragging of Daisy’s harness on the ground. I looked round and yep, she’d gone over onto her side – a technique I call “throwing out the anchor”.

“Come on Daisy! Up! Up!”

Nope.

“Come on, let’s get moving little girl!”

Wag-wag-wag, but still nope.

The only way to make progress was to take point alternately, swapping each time a Beagle anchor was deployed. I’d get a few steps ahead before Daisy went over, by which time the boy – eager to catch up to her – was willing to charge forward until he’d just overtaken us, at which point he’d stamp on his own brakes. Daisy was now at the rear, so I could get her up on her feet and take a few more steps before she went over again. Rinse and repeat.

As it turned out the boy’s home was only 150 yards away, but it was a really slow, arduous 150 yards. Even when he disappeared inside I had a struggle convincing Daisy to keep going. She’s approaching her second birthday and I thought I’d mostly got her over this little habit, but I was wrong.

We’ve seen a return of one of Monkey’s old habits too: bed shredding. I think it started with an overly vigorous bed-making session that tore a hole, and was then followed by a “Mastermind” moment, by which I mean the old game show that has the catchphrase “I’ve started so I’ll finish.”

Fortunately it was a cheap bed and I’d bought a spare to make washday easier, so I just cleaned up and inserted the replacement. Two days later he committed bedicide again so I had no alternative but to get a new one. Though officially the large size, it arrived in a container not much bigger than a shoebox. Apparently that’s how it’s done with online orders now: super-vacuum compress the bed, leaving the buyer to free it from the packing (hopefully without puncturing it) then fluff it up repeatedly over the next 72 hours as it slowly regains its original form. When he saw it Monkey really wanted to help with the fluffing-up process, but I thought it better to do it all myself, given that it was his bedmaking skills that forced the purchase in the first place :)

Monkey didn’t receive a knighthood in the New Year Honours list, but his behavior has been, and continues to be, decidedly chivalrous – to the maximum extent possible for a Beagle boy.

He still puts his own thirst on hold if he senses that Daisy wants a drink, still let’s Daisy into the house first whenever he’s opened the door kitchen door after a garden session, and always seeks to protect her in moments of peril.  For example, a day before we took the Christmas decorations down I decided to give Daisy’s ears a servicing, something that has traditionally been regarded as life-threatening by our Beagles. As it happens Daisy doesn’t actually mind it too much, but still Sir Monkey made it clear that he had her back. Admittedly her had her back from quite a distance – from the little corner behind the Christmas tree in fact – but still he kept a keen eye on the proceedings and was surely ready to come to her aid if needed (especially once the bottle of ear stuff had been put away).

It’s been a particularly cuddly Christmas and New Year for the pups. We’ve had some nice dry frosty mornings, but we’ve also had grey and rainy days – days when really the only thing to do is snuggle. They’ve snuggled with Susan, they’ve snuggled with me, but mostly they’ve snuggled with each other. Each morning has started with a game of competitive tummies, where they both roll onto their backs and try to out-do each other by adopting ever more irresistible tummy tickle poses. If I seem to be giving Daisy’s tummy just a little too much attention Monkey whacks me on the head with a paw, a very unsubtle way of saying “Oi! Over here Dad!”. One one occasion I tried the Rick Wakeman technique, crossing my arms and trying to do both tummies at the time, but I just didn’t have sufficient coordination and ended up with two unsatisfied customers – a problem only rectified by more individual tickle time.

This morning as I had my coffee and morning web surf, Monkey came up onto the sofa next to me and rolled onto his back again, leaving an outstretched front paw in easy reach. I gently took hold of it and he didn’t flinch or pull away at all; I must have had his paw in my hand for a solid ten minutes before he eventually shifted position. This was a first for Monkey; up to this point he’d followed the example set by Beanie, Biggles and Poppy: you can touch me anywhere (and please do) but if you try to take hold of my paw I’m pulling it away! Hopefully it’s a sign that he’s living in the moment more, and becoming even more confident and relaxed. Paw-holds aside, Monkey’s still not quite the relentlessly optimistic boy that Biggles was, but he’s getting there.

Not be outdone, Daisy has added to her growing list of mid-walk rituals. The pee-pee biccie habit is still ongoing, as is the “I’ve jumped onto a wall, walked to the end of it and now I’m ready for my pick-up and cuddle” routine, and now they’ve been joined by “commando-crawl-for-a-kiss”. This is where she makes very deliberate eye contact with me, then inches her way up my right leg using her front paws and stays there until I bend down and give her a kiss or two. Usually two. And maybe a brief tummy rub as well. And all without any food involvement. This makes Daisy our most overtly affectionate girl Beagle, even above little Poppy, and Poppy set the bar pretty high. Beanie still holds top place for welcome wags though, and I still miss them.

Finally here’s a little serving of end-of-year and new year shots:

Frosty mornings make for great sniffage!

But wait! Daisy’s nose has detected a tree root growing hidden under the soil!

Don’t worry Dad, I’ll soon have this fixed.

Yeah that’s it gone now! Didn’t taste very nice either!

Action!

A brief moment for peaceful appreciation of nature’s beauty..

Then back to it!!

Shameless posing on the seat by Beanie’s tree!

Stimulating walks!

One last evening with the festive lights before they’re put away until next time

Oh yeah, remember how I said in the last post that none of the new toys had died yet?

Well, erm…

Farewell Mr. unidentified squeaky animal thing with rope for legs. By sacrificing yourself, you saved the other members of your group. At least for a while…

A slightly late Happy New Year to everyone who reads this!

This Christmas has been remarkable for two things:

1) No-one attempted to pull the Christmas tree down, or even pull a bauble or strand of tinsel off it.
This is especially remarkable given that Monkey really enjoys practicing his version of the  tablecloth trick; at least once a week he grabs hold of a blankie on the sofa and pulls for all he’s worth in an attempt to dump Daisy, and sometimes me or Susan, onto the floor.

2) All the new toys given as presents survived!

Like I said, nobody has attempted to pull the tree over, though one or both of the pups may have had moments when they thought about it :)

Right Daisy, I reckon all the good stuff is in this bag, so let’s work as a team to get it all out of there! Just let Monkey do all the thinking, ‘cos I’m a Christmas veteran.

Here’s the plan: I’ll stand on it while you try and extract the presents from the end of the bag that isn’t open.

OK, here’s the other plan: we both stick our heads in the open end and point our bums at the camera.

Yep it’s working!

Still no sign of anything we can play with yet though, so let’s go in again!

Nope, still nothing that looks like a Beagle-appropriate Christmas present…

Hurrah! A cardboard box! It’s just what I always wanted!

Oh yeah, it’s gonna be a good Christmas after all!

Waddya mean I’m missing the point, Dad?

Don’t bother with that Daisy, I dunno why the humies put that in the bag but it’s not for us!

Stick with me and you can have some of my cardboard!

Ughh, yet more of those useless bag fillers

Nothing more left in the bag now!

Still this cardboard is really good stuff!

Hang on a second though Monkey!

I’ve got an idea what all this other stuff is for..

Blimey, it’s almost as much fun as the cardboard!

This one squeaks!

And there’s another one!

Out of my way everybody, I’m on urgent puppy business with this thing..

OK Daisy, there’s no way this can be better than the cardboard, but let me try it for a minute..

Whoa!

Wheeeeeeee!

I think you might be onto something Daisy! Let’s check ’em all out!

And then there was much crinkling and squeaking…

and chewing of nice things before finally.. 

..a journey to the Land of Nod

Although it did take one of us a bit longer than the other to get there.

My best memory from this Christmas? Sitting on the floor by the sofa (the pups were hogging it) with Daisy snoring loudly in my right ear, and Monkey occasionally kicking me in the head during a dream about chasing. It doesn’t get better than that.