Monkey, our economy-sized little boy is now one year old. Nobody who meets him ever believes that he’s younger than Poppy, and even though he’s 12 months old he still seems to be growing. When we hug him (which we often do) he feels more like a Boxer dog than a Beagle, with a big muscle-packed frame, extra-short fur and a large jowly head. On occasion he even drools like Boxer, but he definitely behaves like a Beagle.

If he can stick his head through something, he will, and damn the consequences!

He’s enthralled by things he hasn’t seen before and is driven to investigate them…

..especially when his diminutive big sister advises caution

When asked how her boys differ from the girls, his breeder replied simply “the boys are more needy”. That’s certainly true of Monkey; he pours on the drama if he’s left alone or doesn’t get the chew or toy he wants, with wailing, whimpering and cries of “Ooo-wooo-wooo!” which is Beagle-speak for “Help! It’s Monkeycide I tell you!”.

He’s still at the mercy of his pendulous Spherical Ideas Department; those balls of his are always whispering unwise suggestions in his big floppy ears and just recently that led to the creation of his own line of fashionwear which I call “Distressed by Monkey”. His most successful piece to date is/was my favourite gardening jacket; I hung it from a post thinking it would be safely out of reach, but I didn’t count on Monkey’s impressive jumping ability.

I can still (mostly) wear the jacket, but it’s not as warming on a windy day as it used to be and the pockets are no longer useable.  He’s also made two pairs of shoes more trendy, but we’re very fortunate that he wasn’t listening to the SID when a package bearing the words “living organisms inside” dropped through our letterbox this morning. It contained 500g of wriggling tiger worms for our compost heaps; if he’d decided to rip open that package on the hall rug before we got it he’d have had a genuine reason to cry “Monkeycide!”

Our boy certainly is a cheeky monkey but he’s a cuddle-monkey too, and we wouldn’t change a thing about him – except maybe for the huge amount of food he gets through in a month; by contrast his little big sister Poppy could live on the fluff from a pocket for more than a week (though not the fluff from any of the pockets in my gardening jacket, because they’re distressed by Monkey as I noted earlier).