Loudoun Hill isn’t exactly a mountain but it’s a big enough climb for a couple of elderly Beaglets, and it’s certainly the biggest hill I could handle while holding four leads.

As is often the case, getting hounds up a hill is the easy part; they’re all eager to climb and see what’s at the top, although time should always be allowed for mid-ascent sniffage and sheep poo sampling.

If there are going to be problems then they’ll mostly occur on the way back down, and in this case I discovered just how much pulling power four Beagles cam exert, even when two of them are golden oldies and often get confused. Despite that I managed to stay on my feet and off my arse for the entire walk.

By the time we got home we had four very contented and sleepy little furries.

Poppy is without doubt our most – genuinely – affectionate Beagle. I say “genuinely” because Beanie would otherwise own the title if we could ignore the fact that her interactions always seem to coincide with us spilling dinner or dropping crumbs on ourselves. What’s more, cuddles with Beanie are pretty much one-way only, in that she’ll tolerate hugs and kisses just so long as she can keep licking up the food debris. As I’ve noted previously, Beanie is the consummate “courtesy Beagle“.

Poppy on the other hand is all about the cuddle itself. At seemingly random times during the day she’ll approach, slowly walk up our legs with her front paws and hang out for an extended cheek-to-cheek snuggle. If she gets onto a lap, she’ll often orient herself so that she can gaze right into our eyes. I’ve come to call these gentle interactions “Poppy moments”.

I have found however that when a Poppy moment comes to an end, it’s best to hold one’s breath and move to alternate location, preferably at least three metres away. Why? Well it’s because Poppy generally ends one of her moments because she’s just dropped one of the most noxious farts known to man or beast, and she doesn’t want her little black sniffer to experience it. I’m guessing she’s thinking “Oooh that’s gonna be a bad one – sorry Dad, time to go!”

Seriously, her bottom burps are foul in the extreme; it doesn’t seem possible that such a small, sweet looking thing could produce such a smell. Worse still, it’s not even just a smell – you can almost feel the coarse, gritty airborne faecal particles entering your lungs as you unwittingly breath them in. I’ve often noticed that if Monkey joins in a Poppy moment, he’ll ram his snout into my armpit, or push his head through between my crossed legs, which I would generally characterise as unwise knowing my armpits as a I do. Once you factor in the Poppy bombs it all makes sense: even the whiff of my sweat armpits is preferably to a Poppy arse-ripper.

I suspect readers who are doggy nutrition evangelists may now be thinking “Ahh, that’s because you’re not feeding Poppy the right dog food” and if so, well, you have a point, but things are not quite as you might think. I’m confident that changing the food I’m intentionally giving to Poppy will not make any difference to her flatulence, because the cause of it isn’t something I’m giving her or not giving her. Nope, the cause is something she’s nicking and nibbling like there’s no tomorrow. It’s these little critters we’ve planted in the garden:

Jerusalem Artichokes, also known as “sun-chokes” or in less polite company “fartichokes” actually grow really well here in Scotland. I know this because we’ve probably got around fifty of them in our rear garden after trying just a few last year. Or at least we probably had around fifty of them; that number must have dropped considerably because Poppy has been digging them up and munching on them for some time now. At first I put the soil disturbance and occasional artichoke debris down to the action of foxes or moles or other uninvited visitors, but one morning I actually spotted Poppy liberating one from its earthy tomb.

As the name “fartichoke” suggests, these tubers have a reputation for causing wind if consumed excessively or by one whose gut has yet to adapt to their unique qualities. I suspect Poppy ticks both of those boxes. Thing is we still want to grow them because they take no effort and taste great, and in any case they proliferate at such a rate that getting rid of them would be difficult. They’re now entering their growing season again so maybe Poppy will leave them alone and the air in our house will clear, at least for a few months…

Oh boy am I thankful that Monkey hasn’t acquired the fartichoke habit! With the amount he can eat in a day and the incredible amount of gas released, his bum would likely explode.

I studied Latin at school and as part of that I had the dubious pleasure of reading The Aeneid. It tells the story of Aeneas, an impeccably brave, heroic warrior in Troy, who, at the height of the action involving the Trojan Horse, sort of er.. ran away. He didn’t want to run away you understand, in fact there’s nothing he’d have liked more than to die screaming in a pool of his own blood and intestines after a short and disastrous tussle with Achilles, who was pretty much the ancient world’s version of Arnold Swarzenneger in the Commando movie.

Anyway, the whole getting horribly killed thing had to be put on hold because Aeneas had a greater responsibility to the future; specifically, a ghostly vision reliably informed him that he had to leg it out of Troy, stay alive and pave the way for the creation of Rome. Any time he had any thoughts of getting his intestines out and painting the floor red, another vision would conveniently remind him to keep on running.

As I see it, Aeneas was basically Monkey.

Like Aeneas, Monkey is by nature incredibly brave and heroic but his duty to the future demands that he temper his natural inclinations. For Aeneas, Rome was at stake; for Monkey, well it’s basically all about his balls. For the sake of all Beagle kind he must protect them, whatever the cost. When he’s out on a walk passing by a farm and an aggressive duck waddles across his path, he can’t recklessly wade in and protect his fellow pack members. No, the prudent and necessary thing to do – no matter much it goes against the grain – is to shelter behind his dad’s legs and protect those precious baubles. If the duck wants a fight, it can fight Biggles (he doesn’t have any baubles anyway).

I presume Monkey was also protecting his baubles the other night when Biggles grumped at him, and in an act of prudent bravery, he scarpered across the room with his tail tucked and leaped onto  the buffet. Apparently one sure way to protect one’s  unmentionables is to seek higher ground.

So, next time you think life your life is hard, just be grateful you don’t have to protect Monkey’s balls. Or found Rome.

Yep, it’s not easy being a hero.