As you can see Biggles really likes to stretch out during his naps. It’s easy to do that on the sofa; if a pesky human starts cramping his style all he has to do is “accidentally” give that humie a good kick with his rear legs and it’ll soon move to give him more space.

However the same cannot be said for his crate in the back of the car; over the last few days it’s just been getting more and more cramped. The reason? Well basically it’s because of his balls. None of them are particularly big, but so far he’s got four of them in his crate and he seems to get an extra one every time we go running on the beach.

I blame it on the summer-like weather we’ve had recently. It’s quite unusual to get summery weather in summer in Ayrshire, but it’s happened, and consequently the beach has been flooded by people: people having picnics, people desperately trying to get skin cancer, and more relevantly, people playing ball games with their doggies and playing them badly. The “plastics in our oceans” issue gets all the press, but trust me, the tennis ball pollution issue is just as bad.

To his credit Biggles is doing everything he can to clean up all those balls, but he’s only got one mouth to carry them in, and only one crate in which to hoard them. I’ve considered sneaking one out of his crate every so often, but I’m sure he’d notice; he checks them all very carefully every time he gets in, then grumbles as he tries to find enough space to park his big white bum. Sometimes it’s not easy being Biggles.

Unfortunately it’s not all that easy being Beanie either. Our windows have been flung open to counteract the heat and on occasion we’ve been invaded by big buzzy flies. They really annoy me – I find it impossible to concentrate when they’re doing their noisy flybys – but they irritate The Beanster even more.

One afternoon a particular buzzer was driving us both nuts so we joined forces to get it. I armed myself with my battery-powered zapper that resembles a tennis racket, and Beanie armed herself with her treat-powered mouth that resembles.. a mouth. It took several minutes of Beanie running round the room snapping her jaws and me swiping my racket, but eventually the hunt was successful! I stunned the annoying little bugger with all the power that two Duracell AAA batteries could deliver, and Beanie delivered the fatal nibble when it hit the ground. Job done!

To celebrate our victory in the hunt – and take Biggles’ mind off his balls – I brought home some tasty filled bones and treated the pups to a night at the cinema.

Beanie & Biggles have had tripe-filled bones many times before

But these had some kind of bacon-flavored stuff in them

They smelled good even to my nose..

.. and it seems they tasted even better than they smelled

Front-row on the movie-watching sofa. Despite appearances we weren’t watching a horror – it’s just that the popcorn had run out.

For a while now Susan’s been using a daily video diary on Facebook to drive improvements in her push-ups and pull-ups. Initially this was a strictly no-Beagle affair; on the rare occasions that Beanie & Biggles weren’t snoring in the lounge or bedroom, they were explicitly forbidden from barging into her video sessions.

As her confidence has grown and her abilities expanded, the Beagle exclusion policy has been less strictly enforced. In the following example Beanie – who is perhaps the most potentially disruptive of our Beagles – was allowed to participate..

The above clip displays some classic Beanie behavior. The second you get down on the floor at her level, she feels the need to come over for a bit of a cuddle and a sniff. In due course she wanders off to sniff other things, then goes to the rug to do some cute stuff – a face rub, a Beagle commando crawl – and then, quite suddenly, the chin hits the floor and she’s bored. Had the camera kept rolling we might have seen another key Beanie behavioral characteristic, resulting in Susan gaining a coating of little white Beanie pubes on the calves of her leggings.

Some days on from that clip the no-Beagle policy wasn’t merely relaxed – it was completely reversed, and Beanie & Biggles actually got to make their own push-up video:

As you can see – or rather hear – from clip, Biggles considers himself to be very technically adept, always wanting to go hands-on (or more accurately, bum-and-paws-on) with anything electronic or mechanical. In the van, he’s the Beagle most likely to beep the horn or toggle the central locking switch; he hogs the TV remote control, often using his bum to change channels, and now in the above vid he tries to make some adjustments to the camera just as filming starts. At least he does reasonably well at the push-ups, though Beanie as usual is faster and more self-assured, never feeling the need to throw in a roll-over to make extra sure she gets the biccie at the end of the exercise.

The idea of filming doggy push-ups seems to be gaining traction outside of Susan’s Facebook page now. I wonder just how far doggy calisthenics can go?

Now that the recent monsoons have abated I can get down to the task of ripping out one of the dodgy boards in our deck and replacing it with a fresh, strong plank that sticks out like a sore thumb.

That dodgy board isn’t the only reason why care is required when traversing the deck however. The other reason is the Biggly Boy, who has recently decided that pooing on grass is passe and that the fashionable Beagle should always favor seasoned wood.

He’s already caught me out, giving me a squelchy “uugghh!” moment when I nipped out late at night to put the wheelie bin out for collection. The flipside of this is that de-pooing the lawn prior to a mowing session is now a much easier process. On balance however I’d have to say that slicing and dicing a bottom-sausage in the mower is preferable to the foot squelch scenario; the smell may be more intense, but it passes quickly and doesn’t require any lengthy cleanup.

Fortunately Beanie hasn’t shown any interest in changing her dumping habits. Instead, she’s been putting her efforts into recognizing her toys by name. I can now tell her to go get “Foxy” and be fairly confident of getting a play session with her favorite fox-styled tug toy. Calling for “Squeak and crinkle” will nearly always result in the appearance of Foxy’s battered, partially dismembered predecessor who no longer squeaks but can still crinkle like a champ. Then there’s “Slipper”, “Loofa-Doggy” and of course “Bone”. I know of other dogs who’ve acquired this ability but I think it’s cool that Beanie can now do it too, and all without any (intentional) training.

Unfortunately it seems that simple “ball” – despite being the toy we’ve had the most play sessions with over the years – just doesn’t seem to have made it onto Beanie’s list of known toy names. Either that, or “ball” just can’t compete with the fun potential of “Mr Squirrel”.

Beanie! Go get your ball!

OK, well Mr Squirrel will have to do then :)