Month: July 2008

Beagle Racing and then some!

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[Note: when the above slide show stops, click the close box in the top right to start it again!]

There was a huge turnout for the racing today, and it was accompanied by gloriously hot, sunny weather. In fact the afternoon sun was so hot that a hose was set up – so owners could give their dogs a cooling shower between races. Even then some dogs had to retire early!

It was a great day for Beanie. She ran hard…

…and came second in both of her heats, just losing out each time to race veteran and powerhouse Sam. Here’s a clip of one of her heats:

(If the video doesn’t play, try clicking here)

She made it through to the final, where she had to compete against not only Sam, but the other two speed kings Murphy and Milo.  The three boys ran a very close, fast race but Murphy had the edge and claimed the crown. Beanie came in last, but there’s no shame in that – she was up against the (current) three fastest Beagles in the club after all!

Victory clearly tastes sweet for Murphy!

Our friends Kathleen and Neil entered 5 of their Beagles this time. One of them bagged a rosette for winning the consolation race – and it was his first ever time at the racing! I think he could do very well in the coming weeks.

Once the serious racing was over, there was the traditional all-together “fun” run. With so many Beagles (and one cuddly Tibetan Terrier) on the start line, video was the only way to go:

(If the video doesn’t play, try clicking here)

Sam came in first, followed by Murphy. Beanie came in third – another great result for our little pup. When I stopped filming and went to catch her, I had trouble finding her amidst all the other Beagles. Then I spotted Sam and Murphy having a tug of war with the lure (just ‘cos it’s stopped moving doesn’t mean it’s dead!), and there she was, trying to grab her own piece of the prey. She’s definitely got the racing bug, big time!

I took a lot of shots of the racing and the fun dog show afterwards. There’s no room to post them all up here, so instead I put some of the better ones in a slideshow at the top of this post. If your dog’s in there and you’d like a full size copy of a piccie, or a full quality copy of either of the vids, please just drop me a line at BeanieTheBeagle@googlemail.com!

No More Death By Pee-Pee?

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A while back I wrote about our new lawn, and how Beanie’s pee is killing it. We didn’t fancy using things like Dog Rocks and Greenum in her water to change the composition of her urine, so we were left with two options:

  • Don’t let Beanie pee on the grass – teach her to pee on the gravel-covered bits instead
  • Failing that, hose down the favorite pee spots with water regularly. This dilutes the urine, turning it into a powerful fertilizer that can actually help the grass grow.

Well, neither of those methods are working. While other dogs apparently like to pee in one particular place, our Beagle prefers to use a new spot every single time. As a result our lawn looks like it’s been shotgunned by acid pellets – lots of dead holes everywhere!

We’ve tried repairs, but as soon as we clear and seed a dead patch, Beanie becomes very interested in it and starts digging.

Behold the face of guilt (with dead grass spots visible in the background)

We’ve been able to protect one or two spots by putting her old crate over them, but we’re losing the war.

Today we did more research into the problem, and returned from our local DIY store with two purchases that might just help us to get our lawn back.

The first is a type of grass seed that is meant to be resistant to the super-concentrated fertilizer in dog urine.

As you can see from the pack, it’s a mixture of perennial ryegrass and red fescue. I’m guessing that grass grown from this kind of seed doesn’t look quite as nice as the stuff used in typical gardening turf because it’s dirt cheap – about £3 a box. That’s fine by me. I’ll take rough-and-ready living grass over rotting debris any day.

The second thing we got – and we happened on it purely by chance – was this:

It’s a pack of six galvanised metal grids, ordinarily meant to be made into a cubic container for rocks and the like. In this case, we’re just going to lay the grids on the ground to protect fresh repairs from digging paws. I think they’re heavy enough and thin enough to be difficult for Beanie to pick up and play with. At the same time, they don’t have any sharp edges so they should be safe for her. So for £6, we can now protect at least six more lawn repairs.

The other thing we’re going to do is refrain from using any lawn fertilizer stuff. It might be the fact that the lawn was heavily fertilized when it was laid that makes it so vulnerable to Beanie’s pee.

I’ll let you know how it goes…

Beagle on the beach

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Yesterday afternoon we met up with Kathleen MacDonald in the park. She didn’t have any of her Beagles with her, but she had the next best thing: Dillon. Beanie and Dillon had a thoroughly good romp around the park for a couple of hours while we chatted.

Afternoons are normally Beanie’s nap time (actually any time that doesn’t involve eating or running around like a maniac is nap time) and I have to say there were moments when Dillon seemed to have exhausted her batteries.

But still, they had a great time together!

While the dogs were playing the conversation naturally wandered onto good places for dog walks. The beaches at Irvine and Troon were mentioned, and this morning we decided to give Irvine a try.

We had taken Beanie to Irvine once before. Unfortunately that visit had been at the weekend, and it was way too busy to risk letting Beanie off lead. This morning however the beach was almost deserted – even though the weather was superb – so we unclipped her lead almost immediately.

She quickly found a friend to play with, and although Beanie’s no slouch when it comes to running, she had trouble keeping up with this long legged athlete.

We must have walked for miles along the beach, just enjoying the sun, sea, and silly puppy antics.

On the way back we ran into a fun loving pointer called Tor…

… and a gentle labrador-staffie cross whose name unfortunately we didn’t get.

We may not have got the dog’s name, but Beanie certainly got a bite of his or her bottom!

Hmmm lip-licking tasty!

If the beach is always so quiet on a weekday morning – and the lab-cross owner indicated that it usually is – you can bet we’ll be going back there pretty soon!