As you can see Biggles really likes to stretch out during his naps. It’s easy to do that on the sofa; if a pesky human starts cramping his style all he has to do is “accidentally” give that humie a good kick with his rear legs and it’ll soon move to give him more space.

However the same cannot be said for his crate in the back of the car; over the last few days it’s just been getting more and more cramped. The reason? Well basically it’s because of his balls. None of them are particularly big, but so far he’s got four of them in his crate and he seems to get an extra one every time we go running on the beach.

I blame it on the summer-like weather we’ve had recently. It’s quite unusual to get summery weather in summer in Ayrshire, but it’s happened, and consequently the beach has been flooded by people: people having picnics, people desperately trying to get skin cancer, and more relevantly, people playing ball games with their doggies and playing them badly. The “plastics in our oceans” issue gets all the press, but trust me, the tennis ball pollution issue is just as bad.

To his credit Biggles is doing everything he can to clean up all those balls, but he’s only got one mouth to carry them in, and only one crate in which to hoard them. I’ve considered sneaking one out of his crate every so often, but I’m sure he’d notice; he checks them all very carefully every time he gets in, then grumbles as he tries to find enough space to park his big white bum. Sometimes it’s not easy being Biggles.

Unfortunately it’s not all that easy being Beanie either. Our windows have been flung open to counteract the heat and on occasion we’ve been invaded by big buzzy flies. They really annoy me – I find it impossible to concentrate when they’re doing their noisy flybys – but they irritate The Beanster even more.

One afternoon a particular buzzer was driving us both nuts so we joined forces to get it. I armed myself with my battery-powered zapper that resembles a tennis racket, and Beanie armed herself with her treat-powered mouth that resembles.. a mouth. It took several minutes of Beanie running round the room snapping her jaws and me swiping my racket, but eventually the hunt was successful! I stunned the annoying little bugger with all the power that two Duracell AAA batteries could deliver, and Beanie delivered the fatal nibble when it hit the ground. Job done!

To celebrate our victory in the hunt – and take Biggles’ mind off his balls – I brought home some tasty filled bones and treated the pups to a night at the cinema.

Beanie & Biggles have had tripe-filled bones many times before

But these had some kind of bacon-flavored stuff in them

They smelled good even to my nose..

.. and it seems they tasted even better than they smelled

Front-row on the movie-watching sofa. Despite appearances we weren’t watching a horror – it’s just that the popcorn had run out.