Even more than Beanie or me, Biggles is a creature of habit. It’s easy to see how some of his habits got started. Back when we’d just got him as a 7-week old pup, we’d rush him out into the garden straight after a meal to avoid any accidents that might retard his house-training. Now, as a fully grown up boy of almost 5 years, he still insists on being let into the garden straight after a big feed. He doesn’t necessarily need to do anything while he’s out there, but he has to go out nonetheless.

The origins of some of his other habits are less clear. At night when I shout “Crates” he sprints to the bedroom door along with his sister, but before I can open the door and let him into his escape-proof bed, he has to “boing” twice at the door handle. Always twice. Never more, never less. He does this so consistently that I’ve started counting his jumps out loud; it’s become part of our joint night-time ritual.  More recently he’s started woofing just before his food is served. We tell him to “leave” and “sit like a statue” as his bowl goes down, and he mostly holds position (his rear end has always wiggled a lot at mealtimes due in part to uncontrollable wagging), but he woofs. Even when I remind him that statues don’t woof, he still woofs. I guess it doesn’t matter; statues generally don’t have wiggly bums either.

His newest habit has me totally baffled however: a trip to Aladdin’s cupboard (as it’s now known) about ten minutes after his teatime meal. The cupboard in question lies along the corridor to our bedroom, and it’s where we store Beanie & Biggles’ least used toys, among other things. The toys in there mostly fall into one of two categories: (1) heavy duty chew-resistant toys that our pups wouldn’t touch with a barge pole because they can’t destroy them, and (2) fabric and soft plastic toys that we can’t let them have without extremely close supervision because they’re far too easy to destroy. Every now and then I break out a couple of the category “2”s for a short play session; sometimes the toys survive and make it back into the box for another day, and sometimes they go on a one-way trip to the bin. The thing is, to the best of my knowledge I’ve never held a play session soon after a meal (best practice to avoid bloat). Nevertheless, near as dammit ten minutes after every tea, it’s play time for Biggles. What’s more, he doesn’t need me to open the cupboard. It’s held closed by heavy duty velcro and a rubber door wedge, but still his Biggleship can open it with his powerful, paint-stripping paws.

Once he’s got the sliding door open, the toy selection begins..

This can take a while. Biggles likes to follow the “toy rotation” policy advocated by many dog trainers. He might pick his slightly damaged white and blue tug rope one day, but the next day he’ll give that a rest, instead choosing a somewhat punctured rugby ball that used to squeak. And the next day? Well maybe he’ll dig past the toy box to access the decorating section of the cupboard. After all, a sheet of 120-grade sandpaper or a two inch paintbrush can be just as entertaining as a toy to a resourceful, imaginative little Beagle boy.

On this particular occasion he opted for the remnants of an old “slow release” food container. It looks a bit like a squashed orange. Pieces of food can be pushed into one side, while the other side is supposed to be occupied by a special blob of chew resistant yet edible material. These blobs are available in ludicrously expensive refill packs, but if you believe the packaging and the customer reviews on Amazon, each blob should last for ages.

“My 2 ton Rottweiller’s been using this for three weeks now, and we still haven’t needed a refill! Five stars!” Says Mrs. Non-Beagle-Owner from Essex.

Time taken for Biggles to extract, chew and swallow the blob in his toy on first use? Almost two minutes. But he got faster with practice.

There’s no blob in this retired toy now, but Biggles still reckons it’ll make a pleasant diversion for a few minutes

Unfortunately for Biggles, you can’t do anything in our house without that pesky Beanie getting in on the act. My boy’s done all the hard work of opening the door, and she just waltzes in and starts taking things out of his cupboard.

Larry The Lamb didn’t have any rips or bald patches when we first got him

Now he’s just a few power-tugs away from a trip to the bin

Which is unfortunate, because it’s clearly play time!

For what it’s worth, Larry did in fact survive this play session, and is recovering peacefully in the cupboard. His next outing could be weeks away, or maybe he’ll be in Biggles’ surprisingly gentle jaws tomorrow. Who knows? Certainly I don’t, and I’m not sure even Biggles himself does..

Today the squashed orange. Tomorrow?

That isn’t all we’ve been getting up to since my last post however.

Two days ago I spotted water on the floor of our posh (i.e. less Beagled) movie-watching room. Looking up, I saw that it was coming from the ceiling. We had a leak in our roof! I spotted the source of the leak: two tiles had cracked and moved out of position. I pushed the tiles back into place with a broom handle which more less stopped the water, but clearly a proper repair was needed. Rather than calling out the professionals straight away we figured it would be better to ask our extremely DIY-capable neighbor for advice when he got home from work. Till then, we went about our normal business. I finished my work and then, since it was Susan’s turn for the tea-time dog walk, I went for a solo run. On my return I spotted our  neighbor and he offered to take a look at our roof.

On entering the house there was no woofing or greeting from Beanie & Biggles so I figured they were still out on their walk. I escorted our neighbor through the kitchen to the back of the house to view the dodgy roof tiles, leaving all the intervening doors open. The neighbor climbed a ladder to cast his expert eye on our roof, and the news was good; it was a small job, and he’d be happy to do it himself. Suddenly we both heard a dog fight break out in the kitchen, and I headed back into the house to investigate. What I found could have come straight out of a sitcom.

There was Susan, wet and clad only in a towel, desperately trying to stay out of sight behind the kitchen furniture while holding Beanie & Biggles apart from each other and away from a torn bin bag full of smelly rubbish. Apparently the three of them had been back from their walk all along, and while Susan had gone for a bath, Beanie & Biggles had snook out of the bedroom and into the unguarded kitchen. With a surprising combination of enthusiasm and stealth they had emptied the bin bag all over the kitchen floor and no doubt swallowed some of the tastier, smellier items. Susan had discovered them and though only partially clad, had done a remarkable job of getting all the rubbish back into the bin bag. She was probably just a few seconds away from getting Beanie & Biggles out of the kitchen without being spotted in her embarrassing state of undress by our neighbor. This of course was the time that Beanie (most likely) chose to start a noisy squabble with her brother.

If our neighbor saw any of this chaos he didn’t let on, but he would have had a perfect vantage point from the top of the ladder. The next day I gave him an expensive bottle of single malt whisky, partly to thank him for fixing our roof, and partly for his continued silence over the little misadventure in the kitchen.

If you Google “dog frozen peas” – as I did moments before our latest emergency trip to the vet – you’ll find a number of articles telling you that peas, whether frozen or fresh, are a harmless and even beneficial human food that you can share with your dog. Those articles don’t go really go into specifics about how many peas are OK, but I’m guessing that a cup or small bowlful of peas would fine. I’m also guessing that consuming nearly one tenth of the dog’s body weight in peas in one sitting would be a “no-no”. Nevertheless that’s exactly what Beanie did.

I’d just brought Beanie & Biggles back from our run on the beach. They’d done nearly 10km with me, plus a short and fun-filled off-lead sprint on their own, and boy were they ready for their breakfast! Still soaked in sweat, I put the usual amount of Burns Alert into their bowls, then added a bit more because they’d earned it. As routine demands, as soon as I exited the kitchen Biggles woofed and boinged up so high that his nose touched mine, while Beanie ran to her customary position in the hall and plonked her bum firmly on the floor to wait. I served up their nosh, made them wait briefly, then said “OK, take it!” and the feeding frenzy began. About this time Susan called me over to her office to look at a training video on YouTube, so I left the two Beaglets to munch their way through the food.

About three minutes later the YouTube video ended and in the silence I became aware that some kind of munching was still in progress. It normally takes only 30 seconds for a bowlful of Burns to be emptied, so I went to investigate and found Beanie in the lounge with the remnants of a huge bag of frozen peas that Susan had been using to treat one of her training injuries. Beanie was behaving like a junkie in withdrawal; she was shaking and shivering and trying desperately to get the last few peas as I took them from her. I picked her up to warm her but her shivering grew more violent and she couldn’t settle in any position. What’s more, she was horribly bloated; her abdomen was fully twice its normal width. It looked like she’d swallowed two soccer balls whole! Susan called the vet and surprisingly enough they told us to bring her in..

I sat in the car with Biggles while Beanie waddled into the vet with Susan. They got an examination room by the window so I was able to watch some of the proceedings. I can’t lip read but from past experience and the nodding and shaking of Susan’s head I could pretty much guess the conversation.

“She ate how many peas?”

“One kilo”

“And she didn’t eat anything else that could be dangerous? Nothing jagged or sharp? And she didn’t eat the packet?”

“Nope. Just her breakfast. And the peas.”

Susan and Beanie then disappeared from view for a few minutes and I shuffled into a more comfortable position in my seat, ready for a long wait. I couldn’t help chuckling to myself when I thought of how eating all those peas had clearly distressed Beanie, yet she’d still been so keen to finish the packet. I’m the same when I have one of those thick, super-chilled milkshakes out of McDonald’s; the ice-cream headache certainly hurts, but I just have to keep chugging on that drinking straw.

About ten minutes later Susan emerged from the practice, bringing with her a slightly groggy but far, far thinner version of The Beanster. As expected the vet had induced vomiting and Beanie, though very keen to hang on to her precious cache of peas, had finally succumbed to the medication. The vet now had a plentiful supply of thawed, intact and undigested peas to supplement her lunchtime repast. And contrary to Susan’s assurances, she also had a substantial portion of the bag they’d originally been packaged in. What’s more, my wallet had lost a bit of weight too.

Despite her misadventure The Pupplet still can’t resist the lure of frozen peas

EDIT: We just received a picture taken by the vet during the pea recovery process:

This is typical Beanie; absorbent pads have been put down but our little girl is clearly doing her best to miss them and dump her peas (and earlier kibble breakfast) onto the floor. Nice!

I think that spending two whole nights in our bed during our “kennel” holiday  has gone to Beanie’s head. She’s always been a little too full of herself, but lately this has gone into overdrive and her respect for us, if she ever had any(!), has hit rock bottom.

For some reason Beanie feels she has a right to directly examine our food, even as it’s going into our mouths..

I can’t think what we could be doing to support this inflated sense of Beagle self…

But I dare say Caesar Milan would have a thing or two to say about it

Some of the things she does are downright annoying. Cups or glasses cannot be left unguarded for more than second; last Saturday as I prepared for a “parkrun” I poured myself a glass of orange juice, put it on the coffee table and walked a couple of meters away to grab my running watch from my desk. The whole thing took less than five seconds and yet in that time Beanie – who had been curled up apparently asleep – had clambered onto the table and begun merrily lapping up my pre-race drink.

Then there’s the “blankie” routine. Beanie likes to be covered when she’s napping and her signal for a blankie is a pawing motion. This is accompanied by a stare so intense & hypnotic that it’s like she’s using a Beagle version of The Force on you: “These aren’t the droids you’re looking for. Cover me with a blankie then you can go about your business”. If a blanket is not immediately forthcoming then vocal protests ensue, and these aren’t the loud woofing variety – they’re an understated whiny whimper issued at regular intervals. It’s like a dripping tap – no matter how engrossed you are in work you have to have to respond eventually. And when you do respond, she tests the quality of the covering by circling and tossing her head. If any part of her head is uncovered during this test, she dumps the blanket on the floor like a spoiled child having a tantrum, and the whole process has to begin again.

To be fair though Biggles is trying it on too; it’s just that his behavior is easier to take. Sit down with a TV dinner next to him and he’ll twist over onto his back, exposing his tummy and all his wares. The tastier the food, the more alluring will be his pose, and while he doesn’t get any food for this display, he does get cuddles which for the Bigglet is a reward in itself.

It’s pretty clear that a mild dose of “nothing in life is free” is called for, but do we have the mental fortitude to administer it?