Gotta Pick a Pocket or Two

Posted on March 6, 2009 by Susan

As many of the local dog walkers know our little princess Beanie has recently turned into an expert pick pocket. In the past couple of weeks she’s been richly rewarded for her criminal activity with a tasty stash including:

1. A whole bag of chopped sausage (swallowed whole still in it’s bag and later vomited up at the vets).
2. 4 Herta hot dog sausages
3. Cooked ham (still wrapped in tin foil – tin foil vomited up that night)
4. Assorted biscuits and other treats
5. Plastic bags, gloves, poo bags and a variety of other items guaranteed to start a good chase.

Aside from being anti-social behavior it’s also very dangerous for her. She’s already swallowed bags that could cause blockages and there’s a potential for her to steal something that’s actually poisonous to her (e.g. chocolate, medicines).

It’s a very difficult problem to fix simply because she has been so well rewarded for it. We’re going to try putting her off by getting some volunteers to put some nasty tasting chew stop on the outside of their zipped up pockets.

We’d be very grateful if everyone that meets her:

a) Guards their pockets – she’s a fast worker and can be in and out with a tasty stash in a fraction of a second!
b) Ignores her completely – no eye contact, no talk and absolutely no treats…ever. Even pushing her away is attention. Apparently it’s best if you just turn your back on her (if you can tolerate her pestering you – if not then of course you must push her away. And we’ll be there as fast as we can to haul her off)

We’ll try and get her to sit nicely when she greats you and we’ll reward her for that. But please don’t anyone give her (or Biggles) treats for the time being at least – no matter how good she is.

The snow’s back, and so is Biggles!

Posted on March 5, 2009 by Paul

Biggles got the final all-clear from the vet yesterday after his neutering, so he got a full length play session at the park. And what a session it was! It had everything a fun-starved little Beagle boy could want: snow, mud and great doggy company!

He got very, very excited, and as everyone knows (especially our neighbors) an excited Biggles is a noisy Biggles. There was much barking and baying..

On the rare occasions when we wasn’t barking, he was clearly thinking about it!

When he got into a grappling session with Maya, a similarly aged pup, it was immediately obvious he’d been using his convalescence to formulate new play strategies. Time and again he’d get a firm grip on her cheek to wind her up, then let her go and nimbly dodge the return attack – sort of the puppy version of knocking on someone’s door and running away:

Of course you can only get away with being a cheeky little pest for so long. Dylan, the other member of the play team, eventually put our boy straight on a couple of things.

And when the chasing started, Maya showed them all who’s got the fastest legs!

Maya leads, Dylan holds second place, and the baying Bigglet brings up the rear

Beagle Bagels

Posted on March 1, 2009 by Paul

Biggles post-neutering scar is healing very well, and it won’t be long before he’s back to full fitness. Until then, we must continue with the constant struggle to keep him and Beanie sufficiently occupied so that there’s no illegal licking of wounds and no rough and tumble. To that end, here’s our latest find – two huge, bagel-like chews from our local pet shop.

An initial display of excitement from Beanie is quickly followed by suspicion. Is this giant bagel kosher?

But a couple of exploratory nibbles later, and it’s chew time!

As for Biggles, he got straight down to business the second he got his paws on it!

Biggles is now almost a match for Beanie when it comes to chewing. When he was younger we had the problem that she’d finish a treat in five minutes while he’d still be soldiering on a quarter of an hour later – a sure recipe for trouble. It’s no good when one Beagle is left with a full tummy and nothing to chew while the other one is still gnawing away!

These bagels have given us a different problem. It’s fine to let our pups chew away on them for a while, but eventually they have to be taken up and shelved for another day. Given Beanie’s recent reaction to attempts to take something off her in the park (i.e. speed-swallow the whole thing) we don’t really want to take things off her in the house without replacing them with something of equal or higher value. Equally, Biggles often gets a bit growly when asked to give something up and all the advice we’ve been given warns against confronting him. Again, bartering is the way to go. Up to now a Pedigree Dentastick has usually been a good enough trade for most things, including teatowels and semi-clean socks (smelly socks are on a whole different level, but that’s a story for another day). Unfortunately these bagel chews appear to be painfully close in value to Dentastix.

When I went out to the kitchen to raid the Dentastix box, Biggles started to follow, got as far as the kitchen entrance, then had to dart back into the living room to answer the bagel’s siren call. A couple of seconds later he was back.. almost.. then again he sprinted away. This sequence looked like it might carry on for some time. Every time I crinkled the sticks’ foil wrapper there’d be a mad scramble of paws and claws as he ran up the hall, then a split-second of indecision, and he’d be off again. It was such an effective form of exercise I began to wonder if it might be a viable alternative to the park on bad weather days.

Eventually the cycle was broken by Susan, who came to my aid by making a big enough fuss over the dental chews to tear both Beanie and Biggles away from their bagels for a couple of minutes. When our two duped Beagles returned to the living room, the bagel fairies had whisked them away.