When we originally got the crazy idea of having not one but two Beagles we imagined it would be like all those lovely videos on Youtube, where they’re always falling asleep top of one another in a snuggly puppy pile.  The reality for us was very different. There were never any snugglefests, in fact looking back at those early times I would say that at best Beanie tolerated The Bigglet, seeing him mainly as competition for attention and treats. I’m convinced that she deliberately tried to lose him on early offlead adventures; on one occasion she actually succeeded, using her superior turn of speed to leave him stranded and helpless in a remote corner of what was then our local park. She came trotting back to us alone and happy, expecting a double helping of treats now her bothersome little brother was out of the picture! Thank goodness we’d invested in a GPS collar for him, otherwise that day could have ended very differently. When Biggles got a little older and his get-away-with-anything puppy license expired, Beanie even went through a short but horrible phase of bullying him so badly that we needed the help of a behaviorist to restore order.

Through out all this, Biggles has always doted on Beanie. To him, she’s always been the best, most exciting sister in the world ever, even if she can be scary sometimes. Happily their relationship has become far less one-way over time; the two of them are now a tight-knit team. This is particularly evident in the “we want more treats” ritual that occurs some evenings. It’s the warped result of our longstanding habit of rewarding them whenever they have a wrestling / roughhousing session that doesn’t get out of hand. When both tummies are rumbling, an agreed play fight kicks off; this stops abruptly after about a minute, at which point both participants turn to face me in unison, wagging furiously in the expectation that treats are coming. If those treats don’t appear, our furry Laurel & Hardy look at each other and agree to go for round two, again halting the performance and looking to me when payment is due. That’s teamwork. The other day, Beanie even came to enlist my help when Biggles got himself shut in our office. He’s the kind of silly boy that often gets himself into little predicaments like that, and it’s great that his big sister is now willing to help him out of them.

That’s not to say that Beanie’s little jealous belly doesn’t still make its presence felt, but these days her brother is rarely the target, in fact last week it was – of all things – a Foxhound who found himself on the receiving end. We were on the offlead part of a beach run when I spotted him: a Beagle look-alike hound that had grown tall enough to play basketball. I called Beanie and Biggles back to me as I always do when we see another dog, doing my best to project my voice in a way that is authoritative yet cheerful. I must have done a good job, because Beanie and Biggles instantly aborted their current sniffing projects and came running towards me. In fact I must have done a really, really good job because when I dished out the “blimey the recall actually worked this time” treats, I found three Beagle-like mouths ready and waiting to receive instead of the usual two, one of them belonging to the out-sized, basketball playing pseudo Beagle.  Before I could react, Princess Beanie of SpoiledBratLand decide that this interloper needed to be repulsed lest he gain access to the home team’s treats. I should point out that Beanie is on the small side compared to most other Beagles we meet – she was the smallest surviving pup in her litter and never really recovered – but next to this Foxhound she was an significant titch. That size difference didn’t stop her speaking her mind though, and the Foxhound didn’t want any of it. Beanie gave chase for a couple of yards then returned, while I watched the fleeing hound in amazement. I looked down at The Bigglet to gauge what he was thinking about all of this, and I figured it was something like this: “Yep, that’s what happens if you mess with my sister. She’s the best. By the way dad, have you got any more of those hotdog slices?”