Remember this little gem from Futurama?

Just like Zoidberg, Monkey has been encouraging various items to surrender their mysteries to him.

The mysteries within this toy have been fully surrendered, and they were mostly white and fluffy.

Unlike Zoidberg, Monkey hasn’t even considered the possibility of fixing things after it all goes wrong.

Monkey seeks comfort from the donut beds as toy-killer’s remorse starts to bite

Thus far toys have been the main subject of Monkey’s investigations, but he is starting to branch out; the inner bits of Biggles’ bed are now the outer bits, and our clothes airer did not fare well when he had a short but intense one-to-one with it . We’ve been through all this before with Beanie and Biggles of course, but neither of them were half as good at opening cupboards, babygates and doors as Monkey. It’s scary how quickly he’s learning to do things, but perhaps his biggest achievement is the regurgitation of a fully intact dog jobby onto our lounge rug. Note that I said “fully intact” there; any Beagle can vomit up a partially digested poop (or “shitvom”, to use the correct term) but puking up a complete bottom sausage takes next-level skill, and Monkey has it.

Poppy has been developing her skills too. She’s recently discovered that she’s small enough to squeeze through some the gaps in the sheep fencing of our inner garden. I’ve been criss-crossing wires over the larger apertures to keep her out, but she’s still getting past them somehow. It’s beginning to look like there aren’t many things that can keep Poppy out!

Beanie can’t seem to decide whether she’s an old crotchety lady or a little pup who just happens to have a more subtle variant of tricolor paintwork. Her voice has been changing over the past year and now she sounds a bit like singer who’s had too many smokes and neat whiskeys, and she’s more prone to use that voice to show disapproval of other dogs. The combination of her voice and demeanour conjure up the image of an old lady hobbling around, poking things with her walking stick and saying “Nah, I don’t think much of that”. The other day I ‘d just parked up for our beach run and as I sorted out the harnesses I could see a dog and his owner playing football on the grass. Beanie could see it too, and she immediately let her disapproval be known. I coud almost hear the translation for her grumbling: “Outrageous! Look at him running around with a ball like that! He should have his balls off if you ask me! Hormones! That’s the problem.”

And yet despite all the old git grumbling she’s still a very playful little girl who enjoys a game of tug, a sprint on the beach and – more recently – a daily afternoon trip into the garden with Monkey and Poppy for a round of marrowbone rolls. This was something I started to help Beanie grow closer to the pups, and it has stuck, but really I don’t think she even notices that the pups are present – it’s all about the treat. Still it’s great to see her out there getting just as excited as the youngsters.

Well maybe Beanie doesn’t get quite as excited as Poppy!

When she’s not sleeping or pestering me to go out in the garden with Monkey and Poppy, Beanie also likes to roam the house checking up on us, to the extent that she’s earned the nickname Snoopy. Now most dogs probably get curious about what their owners are up to, but with Beanie it’s more intense than that – the snooping has an accusatory feel to it. When I see her watching me I feel I have to explain myself, as though I’ve been caught doing something slightly dodgy by a teacher.

What are you doing dad?

Disgraceful! You wouldn’t have caught me doing that when I was a pup!

I’m keeping my eye on you dad!

By comparison, Biggles has been remarkably trouble-free of late. He snuggles up to me in bed, keeps the neighbours informed about Beagle mealtimes, and regularly presents his tummy for tickling. If there was an award the most well behaved Beagle boy during the kast fortnight, he wouldn’t get it, but he just might be one of the runners up.

The garden flooding we experienced last month weakened a couple of posts in our rear fence, so one dry morning I set out to put a couple of fresh, concreted posts in there to firm everything up.

The thinking behind this was of course to prevent any loss of Beagle containment, so it’s ironic that this maintenance work gave rise to the very thing it was intended to avoid. I’m getting ahead of myself though.. I’d better start at the beginning.

I gave our team of four a good long early walk, fed them, and then put Monkey and Poppy into their crates. Beanie and Biggles remained uncrated as they go straight into deep nap mode after a walk, especially if the donut beds in the lounge have been stacked to clear some floor space.

Heaven is a double-decker donut with Biggles in the middle of it

So with two furries in their crates and two in donut comas, I figured I had a couple of hours of unhindered working time. I got off to a good start, cutting the new posts to the correct length and digging two good deep holes, but soon I felt the need for coffee break. You know how it is with coffee breaks – they always go on longer than intended – and when I resumed work it was time for the youngsters to be released back into the garden. Still, the hardest parts of the job had already been done and what remained was straightforward enough: pop the new posts into the holes, screw them roughly into position against the fence, then pour in water and some quick setting concrete stuff and clean up. Half an hour or so and everything should be done, right? No, wrong, because it never goes like that.

I called in Susan to help with the first bit. While I ‘went round to the other side of the fence to brace the first of the new posts in position (being careful to close the gate after me), Susan prepared to drive a screw in from the front to hold it. As soon as I got into position we hit a problem: the screwdriver bit was chewing up the screw. I went back round and swapped the screw out for a new one. We were ready to go again, but now the screw I’d grabbed required a different bit from the one currently fixed into the driver. Back round I went. At some point in the proceedings I failed to notice that I’d left the gate open. Monkey however did notice, and wandered through.

At the back of our garden there’s a narrow bank that separates us from a fast-flowing burn, while on either side are neighbouring gardens, separated from us by fences that don’t fully reach down to the undulating bank. Obviously my initial concern was that he might fall into the burn and be carried away downstream, so I went after him with some haste, and with even more haste, he dodged under the neighbour’s fence and into their garden.

Much of the time Monkey is suprisingly well behaved, but right at this moment he wasn’t the least bit interested in my attempts to recall him, so I just had to chase him down. As a humie I didn’t have the option of squeezing under the fence, so I had to run up and out of our garden and into the neighbour’s garden via their gate. As I finally closed in on him, he took off into the the next adjoining property, beyond which lay the outside world: countryside punctuated by busy roads. I hopped over the next (thankfully low) fence in pursuit, but this garden was somewhat overgrown with lots of brambles and other spiky foliage. I knew that if he took flight again I wouldn’t be able to stop him from escaping into world beyond. It was time for a cooler, more laid back approach that wouldn’t spook him. You know what they say: slowly, slowly catch Monkey. I don’t know about actual monkeys, but when it comes to Beagles called Monkey, that old adage seems to be bang on the money.

I calmed down and held off stalking him for a moment, and in return he stopped trying to evade me. He slowly ambled back towards our garden, and after a moment I began to follow, setting my pace so that little by little I was catching up to him. When I was close enough I made a grab for his shoulders. I missed those, but my hands landed on his big rear end and found a solid grip. One scoop action later he was in my arms, and seemingly happy enough that his latest unsanctioned adventure had come to an end. His little sister gave him a bit of a hard time on his return, but at least she didn’t hump him.

Despite a heavy downpour (not forecast) I finished the fence repair work and there were no further escapes, but I need to remember that even a secure fence is only secure if I remember to keep the blummin’ gate closed.

Monkey, our economy-sized little boy is now one year old. Nobody who meets him ever believes that he’s younger than Poppy, and even though he’s 12 months old he still seems to be growing. When we hug him (which we often do) he feels more like a Boxer dog than a Beagle, with a big muscle-packed frame, extra-short fur and a large jowly head. On occasion he even drools like Boxer, but he definitely behaves like a Beagle.

If he can stick his head through something, he will, and damn the consequences!

He’s enthralled by things he hasn’t seen before and is driven to investigate them…

..especially when his diminutive big sister advises caution

When asked how her boys differ from the girls, his breeder replied simply “the boys are more needy”. That’s certainly true of Monkey; he pours on the drama if he’s left alone or doesn’t get the chew or toy he wants, with wailing, whimpering and cries of “Ooo-wooo-wooo!” which is Beagle-speak for “Help! It’s Monkeycide I tell you!”.

He’s still at the mercy of his pendulous Spherical Ideas Department; those balls of his are always whispering unwise suggestions in his big floppy ears and just recently that led to the creation of his own line of fashionwear which I call “Distressed by Monkey”. His most successful piece to date is/was my favourite gardening jacket; I hung it from a post thinking it would be safely out of reach, but I didn’t count on Monkey’s impressive jumping ability.

I can still (mostly) wear the jacket, but it’s not as warming on a windy day as it used to be and the pockets are no longer useable.  He’s also made two pairs of shoes more trendy, but we’re very fortunate that he wasn’t listening to the SID when a package bearing the words “living organisms inside” dropped through our letterbox this morning. It contained 500g of wriggling tiger worms for our compost heaps; if he’d decided to rip open that package on the hall rug before we got it he’d have had a genuine reason to cry “Monkeycide!”

Our boy certainly is a cheeky monkey but he’s a cuddle-monkey too, and we wouldn’t change a thing about him – except maybe for the huge amount of food he gets through in a month; by contrast his little big sister Poppy could live on the fluff from a pocket for more than a week (though not the fluff from any of the pockets in my gardening jacket, because they’re distressed by Monkey as I noted earlier).