On Friday we fancied a change of pace so we headed back out to Mugdock Park and went along a short section of the West Highland Way. Our previous visit to the park had been a Biggles bayathon but this time he was much calmer, even with rabits and squirrels just a few yards away. I don’t if that was because he’s getting older or because it was his second visit and therefore old hat, but it made for a very peaceful and enjoyable walk.

Shortly before we joined the WHW Biggles made a new friend amongst the Bluebells, and Susan broke out the sausages for a quick bit of emergency recall practice (an on lead walk can be the best time for this!)

Then we got properly under way. The West Highland Way is around 95 miles long and goes through moors, woodland and mountains, but the little bit of it that we were walking along was easy going and very picturesque.

Every so often we had a little snack break. These were well received but sometimes went on a bit too long, leading to boredom for a certain member of our party.

C’mon let’s go!

While we drank flat Iron Bru from  unpleasantly warm cans, our two Beagles got to sip fresh water and cool their paws in a sparkling stream.

Further down the road the woods fell away and we got broader views of the countryside. We also encountered some wooden abodes that somehow made me think of Deliverance, and a garden with a very strange looking well.

It was around this time we decided to head back home. The sausage bag was empty, tea time was fast approaching, and anyway none of us are particularly good at playing the banjo.

Two intrepid Beagle bums on their way back home for tea

Earlier this year Biggles won the “best in show” title at Beagle Racing. Later on, when we took photos of him wearing his new Retrieva dog tracking collar, the guys at Retrieva asked if they could use them to help market their products. I think all this modeling success has gone to his head and he’s become a bit of a David Beckham. He has his nails trimmed regularly, he’s got his own lipstick to use on sunny days, and now he’s had a deep cleansing mud bath.

Admittedly all this beauty stuff does seem to be working for him – I’ve never seen him looking better!

And it doesn’t seem to put the girls off in the slightest. He got on very well with Murphy – one of Beanie’s agility pals – when we bumped into her at the park.

As for Beanie, well she doesn’t bother with beauty treatments as such but she is partial to a bit of perfume. Not the common stuff you see advertised on the telly of course! No for her it’s got to be Eau de Fox Poo. A couple of subtle smears either side of her neck and she just knows she’s hot!

A quick catch-up from the last few days..

While sheltering from the rain in our local pet shop we spotted some very smart looking doggy raincoats going cheap. Beanie in particular really hates the rain and shivers pathetically whenever she’s caught in a shower, so we bought a couple. Very shortly afterwards the rain stopped and the sun came out. Now I’m not complaining about that you understand, but the timing…

With the forecasts assuring us of continued good weather we headed down to Irvine beach for a long, relaxing stroll. The weatherman got it right, because we had an absolutely beautiful afternoon walking on the sand..

On this occasion we decided to keep Beanie & Biggles on lead. I’m glad we did, because on the way back we came across this:

Yep, the tide washed in a dead sheep. Curiously our sheep-mad little boy was very slow to spot it – he and Beanie had spent most of the walk excitedly “following” horse tracks the wrong way up the beach. If they’d have used their eyes instead of their noses they might just have had a chance at finding the horse that made those tracks. I’m convinced that all this stuff about Beagles being amazing scent hounds is complete drivel. We’ve got to two Beagles now and both of them are completely hopeless in the nose department.

Anyway, Biggles kept sniffing away at the horse hoof indentations in the sand until I knelt down to take a photo of that stomach churning sight, at which point he came over to investigate. There was a brief moment of stunned silence, then an indignant bark, and then of course he went ballistic and tried to pull me straight into that putrid heap of a sheep.

Both our pups slept very soundly after that walk, I can tell you!

Earlier today our two Beaglets went swimming at Allers farm (videos to follow tomorrow) and though ready for a nap afterwards, they selflessly hung around to “help” us tidy up the garden. Biggles was particularly helpful while I was trying to make a wooden frame for some flowers Susan was planting. I was going for a simple rectangular shape but Biggles felt that a more avant-garde design was needed. Every time I turned my back the Bigglet carefully rearranged all the pieces. In a desperate bid for peace I handed him an offcut. It worked. Half an hour later I’d fashioned a solid frame to hold the soil in place, while Biggles had fashioned a block of wood with teeth marks in it. Good job all round, I’d say.

And finally I’ll explain the title of this post. The other night we went to see the new Star Trek movie at the IMAX theatre in the Glasgow Science Centre. It was pretty good, although we sat a bit too close to the screen which meant that all the characters had strangely prominent chins. Anyway, when we first saw engineer Montgomery Scott (Scotty) he’d been dumped in a little research station in the middle of nowhere. Why was he exiled? Well it wasn’t due to his criminally unconvincing accent; it was because he’d used Admiral Archer’s Beagle (Porthos) as the test subject in his transporter experiments and it had all gone horribly wrong. Shame on you Scotty, shame on you.