Beanie & Biggles are experienced blackberry pickers, but Monkey and Poppy are newbies and I was curious about how quickly they’d acquire the berry habit. It turns out they’re naturals, in fact Monkey has become so blackberry obsessed that it’s hard to tear him away if we encounter any on our walks.

Biggles coaches Poppy in her blackberry picking, which is unfortunate because after all these years he still hasn’t learned that the red ones aren’t ripe

Monkey seems to have got that one susssed


And Beanie? Well she’s happy to let me pick the best ones and give her the full waiter service :)

One the face of it, Monkey has it made.  He’s got a fun sister to play with…

.. a big garden to run about in, and Beanie & Biggles’ entire toy collection to play with. He does however have one big problem: everybody and everything is out to get him!

There have already been multiple attempts on his life. When the humies take his pack to the beach – ostensibly to let Beanie & Biggles do some resistance training in the water – it’s really about bumping off the Monkster.

Help! They’re trying to drown Monkey – it’s Monkeycide!!

When food is being handed out he’s always last to receive it, and he’s sure that his humies would happily let him starve to death if he didn’t make such a fuss. Come to think of it, the only way he’s stayed alive so long is through constant vigilance and willingness to make a fuss. And he certainly does make a fuss. Sometimes when I leave the room he becomes convinced he’s being abandoned (even though Poppy, Biggles and Susan are usually still in there with him), and there’s crying and howling. When Poppy gets a chew and won’t give it to him, that’s Monkeycide too and there’s crying and howling. There was even more crying and howling yesterday when he was, for a time, genuinely abandoned and in potential peril.

One of us forgot to double-bolt the gate at the bottom of the garden, and at some point it became unlatched and swung open (a body slam during play might have done it). Two inquisitive little Beagles (well, one of them is little, while the other is shocking large for his age) snook out through that open gate and embarked on their first ever off-lead adventure. I had my head down working in some other part of the garden at the time, and when I finally came up for air I looked around to see what the pups were doing. This is always a good idea because Monkey and Poppy are often engaged in unsanctioned activities, like using the tops of our compost bins as a trampoline until eventually there’s a ripping sound.

Oops.. did we do that?

..And do you think Dad will notice?

Anyway, I saw no pups but I wasn’t immediately concerned; maybe they were hiding round the back of some taller plants, or maybe Susan had let them into the house. I checked the concealed areas of the garden without success, and in doing so I became aware of our neighbor’s dogs barking intently at something. I was about to go inside to look for them when my gaze landed on the open gate, and the penny finally dropped: they’d escaped! I raised the alarm with Susan, grabbed a pair of leads and ran off to hunt them down. The neighboring dogs were still barking, so I got the idea that maybe Poppy and Monkey were close by.  I ran up towards the nearby farm which affords a decent view of the strip of land running at the back of our garden, but then in the lower field of the farm I spotted Poppy. I called her and being a mostly good little girl she ran straight to me. As I wrestled to get her on lead and past the gate that stood between us, I heard Monkey ‘s “Help! It’s Monkeycide! ” howling, but this time it was much more desperate and higher pitched than normal, and I feared that he’d hurt himself. Thankfully that turned out not to be the case; even before I’d secured Poppy, Monkey emerged from the tree line and sprinted across the field towards us. He was clearly fine physically, but genuinely scared at being abandoned not only by his humies but also by Poppy, and I’m not sure who was more relieved when I got a lead on him.

The attempts at Monkeycide continue, but Monkey has at least worked out a way to prevent Poppy from getting away from him ever again.

With 16 kilos of Monkey on top of her..

.. Poppy ain’t going nowhere!

Biggles has just had his 14th birthday. The years are starting to catch up with him in some ways; his paintwork is looking a little faded compared to Poppy and Monkey, and some mornings jumping into bed with us for a snuggle takes more preparation and effort than it did in the past. In other ways, our boy is going through a second puppyhood. He’s back to being as woofy as he was at 14 months and he’s harder to handle than our other three Beagles put together.

For the last few years we’ve had “Biggle-hour”, where we can expect him go on the hunt for food and socks, pawing open cupboards and drawers and knocking things over along the way. More recently this hour has expanded and now we sometimes have entire Biggle-evenings. A cup left unattended in the living room will be snouted, slurped and spilled on the floor – guaranted or your money back. It’s possible he’s going slightly deaf  (a hard thing to assess with a breed famous for selective hearing), but he still senses when the kitchen-baby gate has been left open and sneaks in to create mayhem. On walks it’s often a toss-up whether he or Monkey will pull the most, but when he challenges Monkey to a game of Battleshits Biggles always wins on the number of squattings (though Monkey still has the edge in terms of volume).

There are a few things that might explain this reversion in behavior. He could be going senile (something suggested by the vet after his recent sand-swallowing misadventure), he could also be reacting to competition from Monkey, but the option we feel most likely is that Beanie is no longer keeping him in check. It’s certainly the case that Beanie is allowing him much more latitude than she used to, and his confidence is growing by the day. We might just be seeing Biggles unbound – the noisy naughty boy inside that was previously suppressed by the threat of a righteous telling-off from Beanie.

I would never have expected Biggles to be a good teacher to our youngsters, especially as Monkey and Poppy often look at him like he’s the village idiot when he chases up and down the fence woofing at our neighbor’s dogs.

The strange white Beagle is doing it again Dad. I hope you know why because I certainly don’t..

He has nevertheless taught our youngsters some critical life skills. Thanks to Biggles, they both know how to lunge at garbage in the road when cars are passing, and Monkey has finally learned to cock his leg and do proper pee-marking. One morning, Biggles executed a textbook sniff-and-pee on someone’s gatepost. Monkey carefully watched the whole thing, and once Biggles had finished he moved in, sniffing first at the initial point of interest and then at Biggles’ puddle. I could almost see the penny dropping into place somewhere in his noggin; a cautious but well-executed full leg cock followed shortly thereafter.

Even boys who have suddenly become a right handful get a birthday cake when they turn 14

Happy 14th Mr Biggles! You’re a major woof-head and the pups might think you’re a bit weird sometimes, but we all love you!