Doggies shouldn’t eat human junkfood (and neither should humans, if truth be told), but this half-eaten hotdog comes with zero calories and plenty of squeak. It was also completely free! I spotted it when I was last in Pets At Home getting Biggles’ “Woof” bowl. It was all on its own, lying unpriced atop a pile of rather expensive full-sized hotdogs. As it was half the size of the others I figured it should be half the price, and took it to the checkout. Beanie & Biggles really turned on the charm as we waited to pay, and the awfully nice sales person let us have it free as it was the very last one in the store.

Back at home I expected that Biggles would go wild about it because he’s normally keen on squeaky things, but he showed no interest at all. Beanie on the other hand loved it to bits and immediately took it on a high-speed tour of the garden. That’s one of the things I’ve always loved about Beanie: when she’s happy, she really shows it. She pranced and bounded round the garden with the hotdog – all ears, paws and squeaks – for a solid 10 minutes just like a little pup! Sometimes it’s hard for me to believe that she’s going to be 5 later this year; only the increasingly white fur round her eyes gives the game away.

When the victory laps of the garden finally did stop I had to move in quickly to rescue the hotdog before it got chewed to death, but that didn’t entirely stop Beanie’s celebrations…

Even if you’ve had a hotdog, you can still have an extra roll…

or two..