Things like colds aren’t supposed to cross the species boundary, but after this last couple of weeks I’m having my doubts about that. Biggles came down with the closest thing to human cold symptoms I’ve ever seen in a dog; he had frequent explosive sneezes and sniffles and seemed a bit low on energy, wanting to be wrapped up in blankies and snuggled a bit more than usual. Just as his symptoms were clearing up, Beanie started with the same thing, and a day after that it was my turn. While I was stocking up on tissues and Lemsip Susan started having a few explosive sneezes too, almost bringing the hit-count to four.  Fortunately I got her one of those cold defence sprays from the chemist and it seems to have helped her dodge the full-blown version of this particular lurgy.  Bottom line: if this wasn’t cross-species sniffles then we’ve experienced a rather improbable series of coincidences!

The bout of nasal explosions didn’t stop Biggles from implementing another of his cunning plans, this time involving the filled cow hooves I’ve been getting for them recently. The normal pattern with these things is that both pups are all over them while there’s still tasty filling to be extracted, but once that’s gone, I may as well just throw the hooves in the bin. This time however Biggles showed a lot of interest in one of the empty hooves, taking it down into his corridor for an intensive gnawing session each evening. The sound of Beagle teeth getting to work on something in the corridor is normally a cause for alarm, but over the course of a week I came to accept that it was just Biggles having a bit of hoof time, and eventually I stopped checking on him. It was of course at this point that my boy seized the opportunity to rip the squeaker out of his new teddy and remove the toe sections from a couple of pairs of socks.

We often joke that Biggles only has one working brain cell

But when it comes to tactics, he’s a master

It was His Biggleship’s 11th birthday on Wednesday. I gave him an extra hug and bottom pat when he and Beanie joined us in bed in the morning, and then we headed off the to beach for a (mostly) offlead run. In recent years I’ve been able give them more and more freedom during these sessions; I guess this is partly because they’ve calmed / slowed down a bit, but also because the bond between us has grown stronger. In the past if they had slightly stressful meeting with other dogs (maybe professional dog walkers out with a pack of 12 or more) they’d often go AWOL to burn off the adrenaline, but now they just come sprinting to me. It’s a much safer reaction and one that the so-called “natural dog training” approach seeks to create. I must admit that I’ve never put any concerted effort into the natural dog training drills we’ve seen online, but I guess the roughhousing we tend to do during play sessions has had a similar effect.

Happily the only vaguely stressful moment on this particular outing happened when the two of them found yet another container of milk and I had to confiscate it. Just like last time the milk within it was well on its way to becoming cheese, but unlike last time it was Beanie who got to it first. She popped off the cap with ease and quickly set about consuming the contents directly from the open neck, leaving the birthday boy to lick up the over-spill as best he could. I got it off them fairly quickly but I did feel a bit mean when I saw the disappointment on Biggles’ face. As it turned out he was lucky not to have had much of it; this milk came with unwanted side-effects which I’ll get to later.

The Beagle Book of Law states that when houndlets get home after a beach run it is instantly breakfast time, and breakfast must be served without delay or a severe protest woofing will ensue. Apparently I was a bit tardy because there was certainly plenty of woofing, but by way of compensation I dropped the last pieces of Biggles’ favorite munchy sticks in their bowls along with the kibble. Even before the bowls hit the floor Beanie and Biggles grabbed the sticks and ran off down the corridor, temporarily uninterested in their regular food. I put the bowls down and stood guard over them to make sure that whoever finished their stick first wouldn’t end up with two breakfast servings instead of one. It’s funny how treats last mere seconds when I’m hoping to keep the Beaglets safely occupied for a while, but take forever to consume when I’m desperate to get out of my rain / sweat-soaked running clothes and hit the shower.

Once I’d got cleaned up we moved onto the pressies. Beanie and Biggles already have a mountain of toys but only some of them are in fully serviceable condition, and when you see a squeaky teddy going for cheap in Aldi, well, what are you supposed to do? And if you get a teddy for the boy, you have to get a strange monkey thing with long elasticated, flapping arms and legs for the girl. Them’s the rules.

Give Beanie anything that’s floppy and fits in her mouth and she’ll shake it and play tug, but Biggles often takes a lot longer to get properly acquainted with a new toy; in fact he’s only just started running round the house with a squeaky snowman he got a couple of Christmases ago. For now it’s enough that his new teddy makes a comfortable chin rest.

A pack of cheese-flavored doggy crisps was a much bigger hit with both of them. I expected each crisp to be gone in one or at most two quick chomps, but I was wrong; these are things to be held between paws and nibbled over several minutes. Very satisfying for consumers and spectators alike!

It was sometime after this happy nibbling that the earlier milk incident came back to haunt us. We can usually count on an extended period of contented snoring and dream-woofing after a beach run and breakfast, but this time things were cut short when Beanie made an urgent request for the outside loo. I had some product photography to get done so I didn’t particularly welcome the interruption, but I let her out, stood waiting by the kitchen door until she’d finished and let her back in. I had only just returned to my work when Beanie made it clear that she had to go out again. And again. And again. We now refer to the evening of Biggles’ birthday as “The Night of Many Poos.” I’m not sure whether she was helped by the servings of Greek yoghurt we gave her or whether she simply pooped herself out, but by bedtime things were back to normal. As for the Birthday Boy himself, well he may missed out on the liquid cheese in the morning but at least he didn’t end up with a sore bum from over-pooing.

Happy Birthday Mr. Biggles! Eleven years old but still just a big floppy puppy inside!