A sunny start to 2019

Posted on January 3, 2019 by Paul

Christmas was a pretty drab affair this time around, from both a weather and Beagle perspective. Two new solid memory foam dog beds appeared, and though they’re clearly more comfy than than older beds they replaced (as indicated by a dramatic reduction in the late night bed telling-off routine), they hardly made Beagle eyes light up with joy. Even worse than that, after December 25th the daily “Advent Biccie” program abruptly came to an end, and was not re-instated despite howls of protest from the Beanster.

Advent Biccies should be for life, not just for the lead up to Christmas!

There were however two highlights over the festive period. The first was the introduction of a completely new food item euphemistically labeled “beef rings”. I believe these are actually sections of bovine trachea and they’re so disgusting I couldn’t bring myself to photograph them, but they loosely resemble pieces of vacuum hose that have been given a makeover by the guys behind the Alien movies. The interesting thing about “beef rings” is that there seem to be strict rules about when and how to eat them. If I just grab a couple out of the bag and hand them to Beanie & Biggles, then they just get grabbed and munched noisily on the spot (the cracking gristle noises are not for the squeamish). However, if I serve them up in doggy bowls along with kibble, then both our pups carefully lift the rings out of their bowls, set them to one side and munch through their kibble before chowing down on the rings. They’ve done this several times now so it’s definitely a thing, and they make me feel like a lazy waiter who’s delivered soup and a bread roll together in the bowl rather than presenting the roll on its own side plate. Who knew that Beagles really do have table manners?

The second highlight came with an Amazon delivery just as I was on my way out to the gym. I’d ordered a 12kg sack of kibble and a bag of fish cubes, and as soon as I took possession of the boxes the officers from the local Beagle customs office came to make an inspection. I fully expected that I’d have to move the boxes to the kitchen for safe-keeping, but other than a brief sniff Beanie and Biggles didn’t seem particularly interested, so I just left them in the hall and got on my way. Some short time later Susan heard rummaging noises coming from the hall, but didn’t immediately go to check. When the noises continued and grew to the point that they could not be ignored, Susan found the box of fish cubes doing a tour of the hall as first one Beagle then the other attempted to access the contents. We don’t think anyone succeeded, but there was a sizable hole in the cardboard box and when Susan rescued it, both pups immediately turned their attention to the box of kibble. You know it has to be Christmas when you get a few minutes alone with a box of fish cubes :)

In all respects 2019 started much better than 2018 ended. The drab grey weather cleared and when I took the pups to Loudoun hill for their first big walk of the New Year, it was packed with families. To a Beagle, families mean one thing – lots of dropped food and other tasty items. We went up, down and around the hill a couple of times and by the time we’d finished anything that could be eaten (even though it really shouldn’t be) had been consumed or formally reserved (peed on). The temperature was low throughout, but it felt much warmer in all that winter sun, and the sunset was spectacular.

Biggles goes all NASA with his new collar

Posted on December 21, 2018 by Paul

When it comes to collars we’ve always favored the ones that use a traditional metal buckle instead of a plastic clip; I’ve never forgotten that one of Beanie’s litter-mates died when a plastic clip failed near busy traffic. That said, Biggles’ otherwise solid old fashioned collar literally dropped off on a recent evening walk. The cause of failure? The little cross-bar in the buckle snapped, and he wasn’t straining on his lead at the time. Very fortunately we weren’t by a busy road and Biggles was thoroughly engrossed in a sniff so he came to no harm, in fact he quite enjoyed being carried back home in Susan’s arms like a big furry baby.

He spent the rest of the evening and much of the next day without a collar, and given that he’d been so slow to recognize his sudden and unexpected moment of freedom on the walk I didn’t expect him to notice. I was wrong. Biggles very quickly learned that one our most basic Beagle control systems was gone. His visits to the outdoor loo via the kitchen suddenly became full of new possibilities; numerous items were grabbed from the worktops as we tried and failed to steer him directly to the door. I almost had to rugby-tackle him to get his head out of my sock drawer, and when it was time for his toothbrushing I discovered just how much I rely on hooking his collar with a finger; his rear teeth went almost untouched by the brush. Clearly an urgent trip to the local petshop was needed to get a replacement collar, but when I got there I faced a difficult choice: try one with a stout plastic clip, or trust a metal buckle, knowing that I had just seen one fail?

Eventually I spotted something that appears more trustworthy than either of those options: the EzyDog “Double-Up” collar. It does close with a plastic clip, but it has two D-rings either side of the clip for the lead attachment. You hook the lead through both of these rings, so even with a dog that pulls like a train the clip never takes the strain.

It’s a brilliant fail-safe design that would be worthy of NASA – if they applied their problem solving skills to doggy gear that is. Obviously I couldn’t get a secure collar for the Bigglet and leave Beanie with a lesser design, so two of them landed in my shopping basket.

If you’re looking for a safe collar for a dog with zero road sense then the EzyDog Double-up should be on your list of candidates.

Stob Coire Creagach

Posted on November 27, 2018 by Paul

What do you need if you’re going to camp overnight below a mountain then walk up it in the early hours of the morning to reach the summit by sunrise? Water, food, appropriate clothing, a powerful headtorch and maybe a small human/doggy first aid kit? That’s pretty much what I piled up by the door of our house as I made preparations for our adventure on Stob Coire Creagach. Later when I returned to the door to start transferring everything into our campervan, I saw that someone had added what they viewed as a crucial item to my pile: a sock.

The sock was contributed by Biggles of course, but I’m reasonably certain that he hadn’t actually intended us to take the sock on our adventure; rather he’d just been touring the house with his latest plundered sock in his gob, spotted my pile of stuff by the door and went to investigate, dropping his sock in the process. Nevertheless at first sight it did seem like a deliberate, well-considered act by my boy. “Hmm.. let’s see.. bag of clothes with no food inside it, cooler bag with food but zipped tightly shut, walking boots (those smell great!), warm bedding.. that’s all fine but you’ll be needing a sock to go with that Dad!”

In the end I left the sock at home, and after about 2 hours’ driving we parked up by the Butterbridge then set about trying to get some sleep before our scheduled 5am start the next day. For once I slept surprisingly well; Beanie and Biggles snuggled into me providing much needed warmth and their gentle snoring helped me to drift off, but I do remember waking a couple of times and wondering how we were all still breathing with so much Beagle and human fart contaminating the air.

The walk up the hill was short on distance but long on effort. The first 45 minutes were done in darkness, following a clear but very boggy path, but the upper part of the hill had no official path – just various trails of flattened grass left by other walkers, sheep and deer. When faced with a situation like this I pretty much set my eyes on where I want to be and start walking in a straight line towards it. Undoubtedly a more sensible approach would have been to zig-zag up the hill, trading distance for a less severe incline, but after another 45 minutes or so of seriously hard slog we popped up by the primary summit of our hill.

I say the “primary” summit, because that’s the high point of a ridge that winds its way to another summit point, this time with a trig point to mark it. I took a couple of snaps, swapped my sweat-soaked top for a thermal base layer, then spent the next few minutes struggling to get Beanie and Biggles into their warm winter coats. It was so windy up there I decided to use the elastic leg straps on the coats; these things are very unpopular with the furry types but at least they hold the rear end of the coats in place, resulting in significantly warmer bottoms.

As is often the case it got even colder when the sun first appeared above neighboring mountains, but later it did start to contribute a bit of warmth, making the journey back along the ridge and down the mountain that bit easier.

This was the first hill I’d ever done where I could see our van in the car park for pretty much the whole way down. While that did offer some comfort, it made the trudge back down that steep, slippy mountain-side seem to take forever; all I could think about was getting the waterlogged bog-filled boots off my feet and drinking a hot instant cappuccino. I reckon the pups were mostly thinking about having a chase after the deer and sheep they kept spotting, and maybe finding a way to make me fall on my bum so that they could raid my pockets and get the last of their cheese and beef chewy treats. As it turns out I did fall on my bum several times, but none of the raids were successful because the treats were tightly zipped in my jacket pocket with phone. That caused some frustration in the short term, but it made the breakfast feast back at the van all the more rewarding. Beagles may not understand the concept of delayed gratification, but they do enjoy the result when it’s forced on them!