We’re just a couple of weeks away from getting our new pup, who we’ve named Poppy. We’ve been to see Poppy’s litter at Tannahill Beagles again, and though we still don’t know which of the 4 tricolor girls will be ours, we do know she’ll be gorgeous, because as you can see from the photos below they all are.

As you might expect we’ve been making preparations for the new arrival. I’ve tightened a couple of loose slats on our garden fence and we’re working through the house to remove potential puppy hazards,. Additionally Susan has been preparing a little den for Poppy in our lounge, so that Beanie and Biggles can get used to the new layout before she arrives.

OK let’s have a look at this…

Hmm.. I have to say this is looking a bit suspicious Dad

We also introduced Beanie and Biggles to this sorry looking pink comforter:

We’d left it with the pups on our first visit to acquire their scent, but apparently their Mum (who is an absolute sweetheart) gave it what might be described as “The Beanie Treatment”. It’s now missing a head and various other bits, but it’s back with us, and oh boy does it whiff! It smells so bad that Beanie was cautious about sniffing it for a while, even though she regularly sniffs Biggles’ bum without any adverse reactions. When we stuck it in the door of the playpen, she kept looking at the toy and then at the playpen as though putting the clues together in her little ginger bonce. Biggles on the other hand hasn’t a clue what’s going on, but he got a treat for sniffing the comforter debris so as far as he’s concerned, it’s all good.

If there’s a treat involved, I’ll sniff anything and like it Mum. That said, it does smell considerably worse than my bum.

Another piece of the puzzle clicks into place in Beanie’s head

And yep, I think she’s worked it out..

Any other owners-to-be for members of the Tannahill “V” litter can see more of their photos here: https://cloud.degoo.com/share/3l9wsvaqUG9lqkz3czkpXw

And here’s a short video clip of the pups doing their thing:

From time to time I have mentioned in the blog that His Royal Highness The Bigglet is a bit of a woofer, or even a lot of a woofer. He’s now just days away from his 13th birthday and though he’s calmed down a lot, he is still a rather vocal little boy. I doubt there’s anyone in our village that doesn’t know when it’s doggy breakfast / dinner time, and it still amazes me that our postie feels the need to ring the doorbell, because we can rarely hear it over the woofage. For all that, Biggles often falls silent at times when woofing would not only be warranted, but also very desirable.

Case in point: last week while we were busy down at the bottom of the garden, Biggles decided he’d had enough of the little alpine strawberries we grow for the pups; it was time for some of the full size things growing under our bird netting. Being The Biggly Boy and current holder of the “Best Lead Tangler of 2021” title, he managed to get one of his rear paws caught up in the net. This would have been the perfect time to call attention to his plight with a bit of woofing, but he didn’t; instead he silently panicked and made a bad tangle worse. By the time Susan caught his struggling form in of the corner of her eye, he’d already managed to tear a nail bed. I grabbed him and held him still while I extracted his foot from the Gordian knot he’d made; expecting an infection to develop on the wounded tootsie, Susan made an appointment with the vet. The UK’s infamous Covid “Pingdemic” delayed this appointment by pushing the vet into self-isolation and we subsequently cancelled it as tea tree oil baths and doggy antiseptic ointment had made further help unnecessary. Regardless, the fact remains that there’d have been nothing to worry about if his Biggleship had woofed in a timely and appropriate manner. One could further argue that the net tangle wouldn’t have happened at all if he hadn’t tried to nick our big humie strawberries, but he is a Beagle so that point is somewhat academic.

Another conspicuous example of non-woofing while in a predicament happened the other morning. I opened the crates so that Beanie and Biggles could join us in bed – which they did – and then of course The Bigglet got a bit too warm, rolled out of bed, and landed on the floor with a loud thud. That was not the predicament by the way – that was completely normal – nope, the predicament happened when Biggles started rolling on the carpet. The roll became increasingly energetic and grunty, until about a minute later I heard a hollow metallic thud after which.. silence. Uncomfortable, worrying silence. I poked my head up above the covers and looked in the direction of the most recent commotion and there was Biggles, trussed up like a turkey in the power cable (unplugged, fortunately) of a fan we’d been using during hot nights earlier in the year. His rolling had apparently been so vigorous that he’d ended up at the other end of the room and somehow wound himself up in the cable. He was looking back at me with an expression that said “Dad, I’ve done it again. Please help!”.

But still, no woof.

Now I can appreciate that in the wild a woof for help when in a vulnerable state might gain the unwelcome attention of predators. That said, Biggles is not in the wild and he doesn’t have predators (well, unless you count his sister Beanie) and I’m convinced he knows this. After all, I’m pretty sure wolves don’t hunt socks and howl when no-one comes to purchase them with a biccie. So why doesn’t he once, just once, woof for help in a genuine emergency? I guess it’s just another aspect of the unfathomable mystery that is Biggles’ brain.

While the governments of the world have been busing taking dystopian nightmares from the sci-fi genre and treating them as how-to manuals, we’ve been busy in the only bit of the world that we can control: our home and garden. In recent weeks we’ve been able to harvest some of the results of that effort, including onions, potatoes, tomatoes, carrots, cabbages,cucumbers, peas, chillies and strawberries.

We’ve grown regular-sized strawberries for ourselves, but the small furry types have their own dedicated mini-strawberry plants too

Every day the Beaglets have tried their best to help; sometimes their efforts have been welcome, sometimes less so. It is true that the netting covering our fruit plants is there partly to keep the birds off, and partly to defend against premature harvesting attempts by the black nose brigade. On the days we’ve been mixing manure into the soil, the doggy toothbrush has showed a mysterious tendency to go a rich black color, requiring a particularly thorough rinse after use.

Oh compost! Yes I can definitely help with that!

It’s always good to have a bit of doggy company when you’re planting things..

..because let’s face it, planting can get boring pretty fast

I can confidently say that if a squeaky fox sneaks into our garden..

.. that fox will have a very bad day

Hedgehogs don’t get the fox treatment, but they do get woofed at. A lot. And always in the early hours of the morning, right when the humies would really just like the Beagles to come back inside so we can all get to bed.

Anyone who knows Biggles will be surprised by this last shot. All through his life, The Bigglet has been completely incapable of catching anything. He can’t catch tennis balls, he can’t catch treats, and on occasions when Beanie has caught some kind of doggy virus, he hasn’t even managed to catch that. Yet, against all odds, he did catch a pesky fly, and even more amazingly, I caught the moment on camera.

So despite all the craziness outside, Beanie & Biggles’ little world has remained remarkably stable. This however is soon to change, because one of the furry bundles in the picture below is coming to join us!

Eh? Say that again because I clearly misheard you!

Surely you can’t be serious Dad!!???

Yep it’s true. We went to see a new litter at Tannahill Beagles a week ago and one of the tri-colored girls in it will be ours. That’ll really shake things up and make all the big world stuff seem like a storm in a teacup. I can’t wait but it’s fortunate that I’ll have to, because I’ve got a ton of puppy-proofing to get done before she arrives.