Kitchen Pilgrimmage & The Golden Shot

Quite frequently Susan and I reminisce about Beanie & Biggles and how they always seemed to have everything dialled up to eleven, like fictional rock band Spinal Tap. On walks they were always a handful, and whenever Susan cooked a chicken the whole neighbourhood knew about it due to the resultant wailing and woofing. Their successors Monkey, Poppy and Daisy have never been quite as “wired to the moon”, but very recently Monkey and Daisy have been playing catch-up.

The most recent chicken cook-up had them making overly frequent pilgrimmages to the kitchen in hope of taking an illicit nibble from the still cooling, foil-covered carcass. Being a short-arse, Daisy had almost no chance of turning her fantasy into reality; Monkey – standing tall on his back legs and resting his front paws and chin on the worktop – posed a very credible threat. He never actually made a try for the chicken, but he couldn’t pass through the kitchen without have a good look at it, and for some reason this brought back memories of an incredibly vivid dream I’d had way back when Biggles was a youngster.

In my dream Biggles had a pet sheep which lived in our lounge; every morning before he headed out for Beagle primary school (because in dream logic little all little Beagle boys go to school and have a pet sheep), Biggles would stand and peer over the baby gate to check on his sheep. He had a little backpack on, a school cap, a grin on his face and a very, very waggy tail. Now Monkey wasn’t wearing a backpack or cap as he checked on the cooked chicken, but his demeanour was otherwise a perfect match for the Biggles in my dream. Susan reminded me that if Biggles had ever got that close to a chicken he’d have boinged and grabbed it, or at least knocked it off the worktop into the waiting jaws of Beanie. Come to think of it, we’re very fortunate that Monkey still hasn’t realised that his unusual height combined with his jumping ability would put almost anything in the kitchen within his reach, and merely closing a door would be no barrier to him.

Daisy – unlike her innocent and unassuming brother – is very quick to capitalize on any new skills or abilities she gains. In the last week I’ve had to rescue her from the little wire-fenced enclosure around Poppy’s burial site numerous times. She got in there for the first time a few months ago – with Monkey’s help – but now she’s developed a jumping/climbing technique that lets her gain access unaided. Once in there she digs a bit (fortunately not  deep enough to uncover Poppy, but certainly enough to damage the perennial flowers we’ve planted), then she discovers that she can’t get back out and cries and wails until I come to liberate her. Susan reckons she’s now doing her fence-climbing routine just to get the kiss & cuddle I always provide as part of the rescue. Either way I’m going to have to rethink the fencing around Poppy, and that’s not the only headache that Daisy has given me recently.

Daisy was the slowest of all our Beagles to acquire toilet training, and quite recently she’s reverted to peeing in her crate. We’re not sure why this has happened; she’s a sensitive girl and we’ve had a few stressful events lately (tiles off the roof during wet, stormy weather etc), so it could be a response to that. Additionally I’m sure I’ve heard ocasional fireworks being set off in advance of bonfire night, and there’s even been a local band rehearsing some distance a way; one evening I had to bring Daisy in from the deck to stop her howling at a barely audible and not particularly impressive drum solo. Another possible cause for her pee accidents is a UTI, so to rule this out we took Daisy to the vet for a check-up, whereupon we were asked “have you got a urine sample?”. Well no, we didn’t, and I had no idea how difficult it can be obtain such a thing.

Daisy tends not signal her intention to pee in any way I can detect; she just walks along normally and then suddenly drops into a wide squat with one leg partially cocked as though imitating Monkey’s manly peeing style. There’ve been countless missed opportunities as I’ve followed her around on walks and in the garden with a low profile container in  my pocket. It only takes the lightest distraction such as Monkey squatting for a poop, and the moment is lost.

As the vet’s weekend closure loomed still without a sample, I realised I had to step things up. We took Team Beagle for a walk in a woodland close to the vet, and I wasn’t coming out of those woods without a sample of Daisy juice. For nearly the whole walk my eyes were glued to Daisy’s bum, my left hand ready for a spaghetti-western style quick draw that would serve up tupperware instead of hot lead. I must have looked quire odd to anybody we passed, but nothing was going to disturb my concentration on that little furry bum. As we apporached the final section of the walk she squatted – again without any warning – and I sprung into action, but with long grass underneath her and my knee injury hampering my ability to get close to the ground, I found it difficult to position the container. It was like the old gameshow “The Golden Shot”: left a bit, right a bit, right a bit more, but the movement of the container itself spooked her, causing the pee to be cut short. As she came back up I saw that I had in fact collected a little of that liquid gold, and thankfully the vet receptionist figured it was just enough to proceed with testing. I’m fully expecting the results to come back negative, and in the meantime I’ve installed a calming pheromone thingummy by her crate; let’s hope that puts an end to the bed-wetting and saves me from having to collect any further pee samples.