Festive Season 2015: Wet, Windy & Action-Packed

I’m starting to wonder if Beanie & Biggles have some strange new illness that has halted production of the Beagle naughty hormone. We’ve just come through almost the whole Christmas season without any notable bad behavior. I mean obviously our two are still unruly enough that any regular dog owner would hand them over to a rehoming center, but for Beagles they’ve been almost angelic.

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Early one morning the pups made their way up Castle Hill above Largs, where they saw the sun rise, snatched biccies from the top of a small but surprisingly challenging cairn, and inexplicably failed to woof at a group of distant cows (even though woofing would have attracted the cows and brought the walk to an abrupt end).

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Beanie & Biggles were similarly quiet when they journeyed by ferry over to the island of Cumbrae. We endured so much wind and rain on Cumbrae that we spent the return trip in the ferry’s interior passenger compartment. Ordinarily – rough weather or not – we avoid such small, confined places due to the ever-present risk of hearing damage from his Biggleship’s 120 decibel woofer. Fortunately this time he saw no other dogs, no cyclists, and no-one wearing a hat that isn’t on the list of Beagle-approved head-wear, and so remained silent throughout. In fact he and Beanie were so well-behaved that the other passengers barely noticed them sticking their snouts into every shopping bag sitting unguarded on the floor as we prepared to disembark.

Even when we ventured up The Merrick – one of Dumfries and Galloway’s most popular hills and site of Beanie’s best solo off lead adventure ever – both Beanie & her brother passed up multiple opportunities for major naughtiness. That was one seriously rough walk; we went up the morning before storm “Frank” was due to hit the West of Scotland. The weather forecast had indicated the gales wouldn’t start until some hours after our descent, but just like a kid that couldn’t wait to open his presents, Frankie-boy started early. The trudge back down was a nightmare of high winds, low visibility and slippery mud – exactly the conditions in which a coordinated Beagle pulling frenzy would have dumped me unceremoniously and painfully onto my bum. And yet there was scarcely any pulling. No-one even thought to unhook their lead and go for a three-hour romp with the sheep and deer, although to be fair this would have been somewhat difficult to accomplish due to the half roll of Duck Tape I’d wound round and round the release clips.

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Yes it looked calm enough at the start of the walk…

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But storm Frank came out to play almost immediately after I took this pano

Christmas day itself was also trouble-free. Admittedly at one point Biggles did steal his sister’s Christmas jumper and roll about with it on the rug making X-rated sexual pleasure noises. And there was that time – about an hour after having the doggy version of our Christmas dinner – that his lordship had a brief but noisy bout of “stress flatulence” while jumping on to the sofa next to me. But neither of those incidents are naughty by any recognized Beagle standards.

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His..

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.. and her Christmas jumpers, served up with our pups’ most popular and long-lived treat dispensing toys

This morning Beanie & Biggles had their first beach run of 2016, and unusually they had to share the beach with a load of other doggies whose owner’s had likewise decided to welcome in the New Year by braving the cold and wind. A busy beach isn’t the best place to let our crazy Beagles off lead, but everybody else seemed to be having such fun that I couldn’t deprive my two of a chance to do the same.

Amazingly, from the second I released them to the moment I clipped them back onto their extending leads, they behaved themselves brilliantly. They chased around at full speed, never getting more than 100 yards from me and my ever-ready supply of chicken, and responded to all of my commands. For those blissful few minutes of off-lead joy they were just like other dogs, albeit dogs that felt an unusually strong need to roll in the disgusting remains of a seagull and consume half their body weight in crabs and shellfish deposited by the receding tide.

Does all this good behavior mark the start of a new era in our lives with Beanie & Biggles? Is there such a thing as a naughty-suppressant virus? Or is it just the calm before the storm? And if there is a storm of naughtiness coming, will it have a more inspired name than “Frank”? Only Beanie knows, and she’s not telling.

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5 Replies to “Festive Season 2015: Wet, Windy & Action-Packed”

  1. Allison Lane

    Heck! If there is an anti beagle naughtiness virus, can I bring Lola up to be infected? Her beagly highness has been an absolute food theiving machine this festive season and has taken to using tissue boxes as her own personal snack pack!!

  2. Julie - JB, Cassie and Buzz's Mum

    Happy New Year to you all! Long may the good behaviour last! We had amazingly good behaviour from Buzz over Christmas – because we’ve only had him since February we didn’t know what to expect at Christmas. We didn’t even know if he’s really experienced things like Christmas trees, pressies, relatives coming to stay etc but he took it all in his stride. What a good boy, we’re very proud of you Buzz Bomb!

  3. Paul Post author

    Happy New Year Julie & Allison! Glad to hear Buzz has sailed through Christmas :) He’s obviously doing better than Biggles, who got so worked up when a Sky engineer came to fix our sat dish that he threw up!

    @Allison: Well this anti-naughty virus apparently leaves things like food thieving untouched, ‘cos that’s just standard behavior, like breathing. However it does seem to be inhibiting the really naughty & scary stuff, like running off after birds when they’re off-lead. That’s two almost perfect runs I’ve now had with them this New Year. Surely it can’t last!

  4. Susan in Delaware

    Happy New Year, everyone! Isn’t it sad that when beagles behave themselves, the first two things we think are, “Oh no, are they sick?” and then, “We’re doomed! When the bad behavior returns, it surely will require a trip to the veterinary ER!”

    Our two were their usual selves over the holidays, but since Ringo just joined us in August, we’re still all learning about each other. We have now determined that he is not ever again permitted to have a rubber squeakie toy as a pressie. My in-laws sent one, which he immediately claimed as his own (fortunately, Lady does not care for them), and started tearing pieces from it and chomped on them like chewing gum (thus one of his nicknames, “Chainsaw”). I thought that wasn’t such a good idea, but when I approached, I got GROWLED AT and he started chewing faster! I scolded him (it doesn’t take much, he’s pretty sensitive), and he grudgingly gave it up. Well, that went straight into the dust bin, and there will not be another! Otherwise, he’s a very good boy and fingers crossed so I won’t jinx it, I think we can now safely say he’s housetrained. :)

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