We finally met up with Bella – one of Beanie’s sisters – at the training class this evening.

Bella and Beanie are both in the same class now so they should be seeing each other on a regular basis – something that may be a source of stress for the instructor, Val. She quickly regretted her decision to get the two sisters up together for an off-lead exercise!

We also ran into a charming Bassett called Polly on a recent park visit. Beagles and Bassetts are supposed to be quite similar in some respects. Certainly Polly has the same persistence as Beanie. When she saw me handing a treat to our pup, she went straight into a beg and held it motionless for what seemed like an age, wearing me down with her soulful eyes:

Needless to say her performance netted her several lumps of cheese.

If oil is “Black Gold” then tomato ketchup deserves to be known as red gold for its ability to neutralize the unique and overpowering odor of fox poo.

Beanie’s rolled in fox poo several times now, and while standard puppy shampoo can get her looking clean afterwards, it doesn’t do much to make her smell clean. A fellow dog walker suggested we try cleaning her with tomato ketchup, so after our most recent visit to Pollock Park I ended up standing under the shower with a foul smelling Beagle and a bottle of Heinz’s best. It worked amazingly well, though I’d recommend spending extra time on the final rinse if you don’t want a trail of red paw prints on the carpet!

When Beanie’s not rolling in fox poo, digging up the garden, leaping onto the kitchen table or humping the nearest human limb, there’s nothing she likes more than shredding a toilet roll. The one good thing about this is that she’s decided that bog roll hunting is best done when the toilet isn’t occupied, so at least you don’t have to go chasing after her with your pants round your ankles. On the other hand, it takes quite a while to clean up after a full roll has been given the Beanie treatment. It’s nothing like the Andrex puppy adverts I can tell you. And if you actually manage to stop the little rascal before she’s made much of a mess, she looks quite indignant!

How come you always know when I’ve been naughty?

As well as tussling with her siblings, Beanie had a good long wrestling session with Lucy, aka Always and Forever from the Jalhar kennels. They’d traveled all the way from Staffordshire in England to be at the competition, and two of their young handlers kindly shared their knowledge with us over a coffee.

When Lucy was dragged away to the show ring, Rhiannon (below) somehow managed to instill some discipline into our little hooligan, while her older sister Rebecca gave us a fascinating insight into the world of dog shows.

In truth we had such a good time talking to the all the other Beagle lovers that we didn’t really see much of the competition itself! There are further Beagle gatherings later in the year, including a barbecue sometime in the summer. On top of that, Liz of Newlin Beagles  said she may be organizing some informal walks via her website. Judging from the enthusiasm on show today,  I think they’ll be a great success.