Over the Christmas period Burns pet food ran a festive photo competition on their facebook page, and a certain two Beagles won with the following snap:

We were promised that a “little something” was on its way to us as a prize, and tonight – just as Beanie and Biggles were about to tuck into their tea – we received a very BIG something, safely wrapped in a sturdy plastic bag!

After the initial external inspection, the unpacking began…

Biggles seemed particularly adept at this

One by one, he carefully extracted the goodies from the bag

and ran off with them to his “corridor of doom”

The kelties and fish bites have been unpacked, but there’s still more in there!

OK, who’s got dibs on the Duck & Brown Rice?

We managed to get them to pose with their impressive prize haul for about 3/10ths of a second…

but we couldn’t hold off the first tasting any longer than that!

The prize couldn’t have been better for our Beagles; two bags of kelties, two bags of fish bites, a couple of sturdy frisbees (Biggles destroyed our others), a big bag of their favorite kibble, and a very posh looking blanket which amazingly matches the color of our sofa:

Thank you Mr. Burns!!!

The snow came back, and Mr. Fox came out to play.

One fox, two Beagles. Whatever happens, it’s gonna be noisy!

Beanie got hold of him first and pranced about like a new puppy, trying to tempt Biggles into a chase:

Go on Biggles, try to get Mr Fox, I dare ya!

Biggles didn’t take the bait though; he knows he’s not fast or agile enough to catch Beanie when she’s taunting him with a toy. Instead, he just sat quietly watching and waiting for Beanie to get bored…

Without the thrill of a chase, Mr. Fox loses his appeal and Beanie’s attention starts to wander…

After a few minutes, Mr. Fox’s head mysteriously stopped squeaking and Beanie dropped him for a moment to go investigate something else. This was exactly what Biggles had been waiting for! He sprinted in, grabbed Mr. Fox and chewed furiously at the remaining squeaker in the tail end!

With Beagles, possession isn’t just 9/10ths of the law, it’s ALL of it!

Beanie complained loudly at this blatant case of foxnapping, but Biggles wasn’t giving it up. He was now willing to engage in a chase however; Beanie may be the superior athlete, but he’s the superior tactician, and when he gets the pole position in a chase he knows how to hold on to it!

Biggles issues the challenge!

His chase, his rules!

And we’re off!

Mr Fox is currently drying out in our utility room. He’s down to one working squeaker and he’s looking a bit sorry for himself, but he’s still in one piece and I suspect he’ll be joining our two on another chase before long.

We fancied having a nice quiet Christmas Day this time around, but if you’ve got Beagles and the house is full of the smell of cooking turkey, the only way to get some peace is to tire them out and fill their full tummies. For this reason there was no lie-on in Christmas morning! We ejected our two lazy boneses out of bed at a ridiculously early hour (it was certainly well before noon, which is the natural Winter rising time for the pampered beagle)  and sent them straight into the garden. As luck would have it they spent a few minutes doing their perimeter checks, then got into a  frenzied chase and wrestling match.

They came in from their morning workout assuming they’d get to harass us at the breakfast table then go for a supplementary pre-walk nap just like always, but  I bundled them straight into the car and took them to the beach for an hour’s run on the sand. All the chasing and wrestling in the garden hadn’t drained their batteries and as you’ll see from the video the three of us made several unsuccessful “stealth” attacks on the seagulls. It’s worth noting at this point that none of Beanie & Biggles’ seagull raids have ever been successful. I see three reasons for this:

• They’re usually tied to me via the Cani-x belt, and I really cramp their style
• The Beagle concept of “stealth” is different from ours; it involves baying at full volume the second you spot your intended prey, and certainly well before you’re close enough to offer any threat of capture
• Seagulls are totally without honor and think nothing of cheating (aka flying) to avoid becoming a Beagle Happy Meal.

So anyway, we came back from the beach empty handed but just in time for our Christmas dinner. The two B’s got their own version of the traditional Christmas nosh, including a generous helping of Brussels sprouts. I must confess I had serious doubts about the wisdom of giving sprouts to the Bigglet, but so far there hasn’t been any discernible increase in the frequency or potency of his farts. Wish I could say the same about my own.

Beagle Christmas 2010 from Paul Roberts on Vimeo.

After the belly-banger came the opening of the pressies:

Bundy’s rawhide Christmas stockings were a great hit!

Beanie quickly released her Crazy Critter Raccoon

Biggles took a bit longer to unwrap his fox but he was the first to discover it had double squeakers

This present had Beanie puzzled

What could it be?

Aha! A special deaf and flightless species of duck!

Finally the Beagle stealth attack succeeds!

I wonder if Biggles remembers the duck he had as pup?

He’s bigger than he was then and the duck has turned purple, but there’s that same murderous intent to give it a thorough squeaking

With all the activity over and a stomach full of turkey just starting to digest, our two Beaglets felt their eyelids getting heavy. We were similarly sedated by the Christmas pud, and the four of us fell into comas and missed some of the (ahem) “stunning” Xmas telly.

What do Beagle boys dream of on Christmas day?

Peace at last. If you don’t mind the snoring!