Most of the time Beanie & Biggles have clearly defined roles: Beanie handles drinking from unguarded cups, harassing people for food and instantly grabbing anything that falls on the floor; the Bigglet takes care of cuddles, socks and nicking things from tables and work surfaces. Sometimes however they like to swap some of their responsibilities, just to keep us on our toes.

Right now it’s Mr Biggles who’s the master of cups, but he doesn’t just drink from them like Beanie; he actually picks them up and takes them to his lair for a really thorough emptying and cleaning. This is no small achievement given that cups are designed to be held in human hands rather than Beagle jaws, but he manages it nonetheless.

When he’s finished with a cup, it’s truly spotless. It almost seems redundant to recover it from the corridor (or his bed) and put it in the dishwasher, but given that our two are due for a worming in a couple of weeks, it’s probably a good thing that we do.

Unfortunately Biggles’ new responsibilities don’t stop at cups, and Susan’s entirely to blame for this one. One morning she let him have a bit of scrambled egg and toast from her breakfast plate, and now it’s developed into a habit. The moment she gets up and goes anywhere near the kitchen he follows her with a hopeful look on his face and a slow but steady wag in his rear end. If he hasn’t yet been let out of his crate he whines and bangs on the door, fearing that he’s missing his chance of another taste of human breakfast. This is particularly problematic for me because Susan’s currently having intermittent pain from a training injury and gets up very, very early in the morning to foam roll and medicate. Regardless of the time, when she gets up and leaves the bedroom, his Biggleship has to follow or there’s trouble.

As for Beanie, well she’s become much more cuddly. I don’t know if it’s a hangover from the scary fireworks on Bonfire Night, but quite often now she’ll jump onto my lap and allow me to cuddle her. She still faces away from me as though to preserve some element of separation from the lower classes, but I can cuddle her, mess with her ears and even kiss her on the cheek without causing her to scarper. She’s even become a little more biddable and polite when treats are being handed out.

There’s been no swapping of roles when it comes to play time however. Beanie still likes a good rough-housing session with her rabbit-skin tugger, while Biggles prefers a gentler style of play with the Monkey toy I got him for his birthday. Monkey started out with 8 squeakers and after two months of play six of them are still fully operational. He wouldn’t have lasted a day with Beanie, but I’m always careful to keep him out of Beanie’s destructive jaws when Biggles has finished playing with him.

Beanie in action with her tugger.

It used to be covered in rabbit fur, but that was ripped out within the first couple of minutes!

Biggles gets to grips with Monkey. Despite appearances, his play sessions are much less physical than Beanie’s.

Like most people of her time, Queen Elizabeth I wasn’t big on regular bathing. Like most contemporary Beagles, Princess Beanie is even less keen on bath time; in fact the last time she and Biggles had a proper all-over wash was two years ago.

Nevertheless, the Beanster has recently developed an obsession with getting into the bath. Don’t go thinking this indicates a sudden desire to smell of something other than poo and dead things however! Nope, this has nothing to do with cleanliness, and everything to do with cocoa. You see Susan often likes a cup of hot chocolate with her post-training bath; sometimes (well, pretty often it turns out) she leaves the mostly drained mug on the ledge of the bathtub, where it’s just begging for Beagle attention.

Traditionally something about the shape of the bath or its association with a good scrubbing has kept Beanie from tapping this sugary food source, but not anymore! A few days ago we heard scrabbling followed by a thud, followed by lapping, and discovered Beanie in the bath with her snout in Susan’s cocoa mug. Since then Beanie has apparently honed her technique for bath entry because there’s no longer any scrabbling noise; it’s just “thud” and “lap-lap-lap”, but still neither of us has actually seen her getting in there.

This weekend I decided to remedy this. Some time after Susan’s bath I opened the bedroom door, got my camera, and camped out on the loo seat to see what would transpire. As it happened, I didn’t have long to wait before our floppy-eared cocoa hunter made an appearance..

Beanie’s entry was certainly confident if not particularly elegant

There was still some foam and water on the bath floor which made the going slippy, but this didn’t deter the intrepid Beanster

She paused briefly above the mug for sniffs, like a wine expert checking out the “nose” of a fine vintage

Then the snout went in and the lapping started.

I think my presence was cramping Beanie’s style a bit; as I took more photos the lapping grew more hurried and the mug fell off the ledge and into the bath. The remaining cocoa mixed with the bath foam, but apparently this did nothing to lessen its desirability.

Eventually all the lapping that was to be done had been done, and we came to the bit that Beanie hasn’t quite worked out yet: exiting the bath without human assistance.

Whoa, that looks a bit tricky!

Er Dad, a little help please!

It’s been a funny couple of weeks since my last post. I’ve been flogging various items on eBay to clear some space and raise funds for a free standing pull-up bar for our home gym. I’ve got rid of an old workout bench, assorted other unused equipment, and even Beanie & Biggles’ battery powered lure coursing machine. I felt a little bad about that last one; our dynamic duo have had some fun times chasing it around but we just haven’t used it in ages. Our garden’s not really big enough to use it properly, Biggles stopped following it ages ago (preferring instead to lay in wait for it at the finish point), and Beanie gets ridiculously over-excited whenever we set it up. Add to that the problem of finding a large enough, safe-ish area at a time when no other people or dogs are around and, well it was all just too much hassle. Still, Beanie gave me some funny looks when I was photographing it in the lounge; her little puzzled face even made it into one of the eBay photos as she watched me through the lounge door.

Anyway the bottom line was that the camera came out but was never pointed directly at the Beagles, which was decidedly weird. It got even weirder when one week later a strange bloke came to the house to collect the bench that he’d bought. His arrival really caught the pups by surprise, but I think he was even more surprised than they were. As he entered the house, Biggles was right by the baby gate that secures the lounge, woofing and repeatedly boinging like a pogostick. Next to Biggles was a small blanket-wrapped blob that had a wagging tail sticking out of its rear. Of course the blob was actually The Beanster, who’d been having her afternoon nap and had been in such a hurry to greet the stranger that she hadn’t had time to shed her blankie. Needless to say the guy didn’t hang around long. He handed over the cash, took the bench, and backed away slowly avoiding eye contact.

The next weird event occurred in our home gym when the new stuff arrived.  Susan & I assembled the pull-up bar & rings while Beanie & Biggles tore up the packaging and deposited it all round the house, and then we had a brief photoshoot.

That wasn’t the weird part, by the way. It wasn’t even weird when Biggles concentrated so much on posing with the rings that he fell off the bench we was on and landed on his head. That kind of thing happens to Biggles all the time. No, the weird bit came when I laid down on the exercise mat to do my abs, and for the first time in my life, actually allowed Beanie to hump my leg.

Beanie gets to hump Susan all the time, and she usually leaves a little wet patch of pee on Susan’s leg when she’s finished. But when the little tricolored limpet attempts to lock onto one of my legs, she gets shaken off immediately. Always. Except this time. I figured that just this once I’d let her start humping, grab a quick photo of her then prise her off my leg before the pee. As you might expect I mistimed it, and had to change one of my socks right after I took the shot. But the weirdness didn’t stop there, because ever since that humping, Beanie has been extraordinarily biddable. No impatient howling if I’m late with her tea. No attempts to linger in the kitchen when there’s food on the worktops. And no temporary deafness when I tell her to get out of bed on a morning. You know what this means? Cesar Milan has got it all wrong. If you want a compliant, hassle-free Beagle just forget all that “be a pack leader” stuff and let her hump the hell out of your leg and pee on your sock.

And finally, after that dog training revelation, here are a few shots from another hike up Knock Hill on a day when it wasn’t raining (much). It was cold, it was windy, and it was woofy. So at least something’s been normal this last couple of weeks!