Things like colds aren’t supposed to cross the species boundary, but after this last couple of weeks I’m having my doubts about that. Biggles came down with the closest thing to human cold symptoms I’ve ever seen in a dog; he had frequent explosive sneezes and sniffles and seemed a bit low on energy, wanting to be wrapped up in blankies and snuggled a bit more than usual. Just as his symptoms were clearing up, Beanie started with the same thing, and a day after that it was my turn. While I was stocking up on tissues and Lemsip Susan started having a few explosive sneezes too, almost bringing the hit-count to four.  Fortunately I got her one of those cold defence sprays from the chemist and it seems to have helped her dodge the full-blown version of this particular lurgy.  Bottom line: if this wasn’t cross-species sniffles then we’ve experienced a rather improbable series of coincidences!

The bout of nasal explosions didn’t stop Biggles from implementing another of his cunning plans, this time involving the filled cow hooves I’ve been getting for them recently. The normal pattern with these things is that both pups are all over them while there’s still tasty filling to be extracted, but once that’s gone, I may as well just throw the hooves in the bin. This time however Biggles showed a lot of interest in one of the empty hooves, taking it down into his corridor for an intensive gnawing session each evening. The sound of Beagle teeth getting to work on something in the corridor is normally a cause for alarm, but over the course of a week I came to accept that it was just Biggles having a bit of hoof time, and eventually I stopped checking on him. It was of course at this point that my boy seized the opportunity to rip the squeaker out of his new teddy and remove the toe sections from a couple of pairs of socks.

We often joke that Biggles only has one working brain cell

But when it comes to tactics, he’s a master