During the past fortnight everyone in our house has been struck down by illness.

The first to succumb, somewhat predictably, was Beanie. One day, shortly after her morning walk, she vomited up  her breakfast and promptly lost her appetite for food and water. Usually loss of appetite in a Beagle is a sign that something is very wrong, but Beanie has a history of being very sensitive to sick tummies so we bravely delayed any vet action for 24 hours. It turned out to be the right call because the next morning she had a drink and a little nibble of chicken. From there she rapidly returned to her normal self, whereupon Biggles did a couple of highly unpleasant barfs in our bedroom. He never lost his appetite though, and to be fair his bout of sickness could simply have been an attempt to make the carpet smell right after I’d given it a thorough wet clean at the New Year.

Once Biggles was back to full health we had maybe two days of normality before it was our turn for illness. Thankfully we didn’t get a vomiting bug, but we did get a really vile cold. Borrowing terminology from the camera world, I’ve been referring to it as a “bridge” cold; in the same way that a “bridge” camera sits between a point-and-shoot and a DSLR,  this cold was way worse than normal sniffles but didn’t quite have the knock-you-on-your-arse power of full-on flu.

Susan got it first, and a few days later it got its claws into me. Things were OK while at least one of us was feeling on top of things, but inevitably there was an overlap point where we were both suffering, and that’s when the house became a bomb-site. In our weakened state we got lazy about putting things away and tidying up after ourselves, and Beanie & Biggles took full advantage. At one point nearly every square foot of floorspace had some kind of Beagle-generated debris in it. There was ripped up mail and Amazon boxes , bits of socks and assorted underwear, and lot and lots of shredded tissues. Quite why a snot-filled, screwed up tissue is such a prized item for a Beagle I’ll never know, but it is.

Of course for every five (or maybe ten) naughty things they did, they’d each do something really endearing. One morning when I had the shivers, Biggles climbed into bed and reverse parked himself into my arms. He pushed his back against my stomach and tucked his head under my chin, warming me way better than any hot water bottle. I dozed off, and when I woke up he’d moved so that his arse was right under my nose. And yes, even with my cold, I was able to detect his farts.

On another occasion I was so choked up with mucus that I couldn’t get to sleep in our bed at all. I figured that the best way to get at least some shut-eye was to stay in the lounge watching the TV and deliberately try to stay awake. Typically this is a recipe for snoozing, for me at least. Sure enough I nodded off a few times, and the next morning I was very gently woken by Beanie. She’d moaned at Susan to let her out of her crate then trotted through to find me and check that all was well. No other dog in the world does greetings as sweetly as the Beanster: there’s no licking, she just reaches up to put her front paws on your shoulders and ever so gently touches her nose against yours while wagging furiously.

Anyway, despite this attack of the lurgi I still managed to get a few shots of the pups that are worth airing..

I’ve been trying to improve my running speed despite a series of niggling injuries, and my current favorite workout is “30:20:10”. You start with a warmup, then jog for 30seconds, run at race pace for 20 secs, and sprint all out for 10 secs. Repeat this a few times, then jog for a couple of minutes to recover and do it all again. And again. Since you’re always changing pace the training session flies by, and there’s none of the anticipation/dread that normally builds up prior to a more conventional speed workout. The problem – as ever – is finding the time to get all this training in whilst still doing work and other daily routines like dog walks. With that in mind I decided to combine one of my 30:20:10 workouts with my weekly 10k with Beanie & Biggles on the beach.

It was a brave decision given that structured exercise and Beagles generally don’t mix well. In the past I’ve taken Beanie & Biggles along on hill sprint sessions and ended up either grinding to a halt half way up the hill with my legs tied up in their leads, or arse-surfing down the hill when they decided that my recovery jog to the bottom should be a desperate sprint. This time however, things went smoothly. Beanie, and especially Biggles, quickly settled into the rhythm of the workout.

After the first couple of repetitions I started adding a verbal cue to each phase: “Easy!” for the jog, “Running Pace!” for the next gear and “Turbo!” for the sprint. There are no prizes for guessing which part my two pups liked the most! Every time I shouted “Turbo!” Biggles would bay his head off and shoulder-charge his galloping sister.

Adding to the fun & stimulation of the constantly changing pace were the many obstacles that the tide had deposited on the beach. We regularly had to leap over tree trunks and branches, and there was also a car seat (!!??), a microwave (with missing door), a green wellie, the rear section of an old CRT-style TV and an assortment of holed tubs and buckets to go over and around. At one point we had to cross a stream made by a sewer or drain outlet. Beanie and Biggles leapt across in perfect sync, while I couldn’t quite make the distance and got a soaking wet foot. Fortunately a subsequent sniff test of my shoe discounted the theory that the stream was run-off from a sewer, so no harm was done. By the time we got back home I felt that I’d drained my batteries pretty well, and I figured that Beanie and Biggles would happily nap the afternoon away leaving me in peace to get some work done. That’s probably how it would have turned out too, if hadn’t been for a spot of drama over Biggles’ “cot”.

The cot came into being when a spare duvet was temporarily dumped into one of the baskets in the living room, instantly turning it into the most sumptuous Beagle bed ever.

It didn’t take long for the duvet to get a bit grubby, but a bit of muck never bothered a Beagle!

Biggles immediately took a shine to this new super-luxury bed, so we started referring to it as his “cot”. Initially this didn’t cause any conflict because the ever-antisocial Beanie prefers to be up on a sofa securely wrapped in her blanket, only emerging from her cocoon to empty an unguarded cup of tea or vacuum up the crumbs left from a TV-dinner. Today however, perhaps still feeling the stimulation of the beach run, it suddenly occurred to Beanie that she might be missing out and things quickly got noisy. She complained at Biggles solidly for ten minutes, then when he left the basket (either to escape her moaning or for a drink, I’m not sure which) she climbed in and tried to claim it. He responded by woofing of course. When that didn’t work he lured her into a play fight which sent cups and remote controls flying and left the hall rug at a very jaunty angle. Tails were pulled, ears were nibbled and eardrums were burst before we eventually got the two of them to calm down. The end result? Well Beanie was cocooned on the sofa once again, and Biggles was back in his cot. He looked so sweet in there that Susan commented she should really have a teddy bear to cuddle. Well we didn’t have a teddy bear to hand, but we did have “Toby” the little soft toy Beagle, so…

He genuinely seemed to like having his little cuddly companion with him in the basket

Even holding on to it with his paws as he rolled over

Beanie of course wasn’t impressed by any of this, and Toby had another brush with death when she got hold of him..

Little Miss Jealous-Belly plots her revenge

And has a Hannibal Lecter moment..

Happily Toby escaped undamaged, which is more than I can say for Biggles’ street cred.  Do other four year old adult male Beagles like sleeping with a Beagle-teddy?

Beanie & Biggles like routines.

There’s the morning routine, where they get let out of their crates to have a snuggle with us in bed before we all get up.

Then of course there’s the mealtime routine. Very popular this one! The two of them wait impatiently outside the kitchen for nosh to be served up in their bowls. Once the food-maker emerges from the kitchen, Beanie immediately runs to her allocated spot in the hall and sits down very neatly. Biggles tries to do likewise, but more often than not feels the need to make a single jubilant “boing” (bouncing jump) at his bowl first. Once they’re both in position there’s a ten hour “leave” exercise (that’s ten hours in Beagle time, or about 5 seconds in human time) before they get the “OK” to tuck in.

At the end of the day there’s the bedtime routine, comprising of:

1. toothbrushing (which is tolerated, more or less, in return for a cube of dried fish skin from Fish4Dogs),
2. a trip into the garden for a final loo visit. Although he’s now 4 years old we still have to remind Biggles to “do his business” as he trots out of the door for this, otherwise he forgets what he’s being sent out to do and we end up having an emergency repeat loo visit during the night.
3. the presentation of half a Dentastix each in their crates. They race each other into their crates for this, charging over, under or through anything that’s between them and their bedtime treat. Once in their crates, Beanie sits dutifully in the middle of her bed but Biggles, again overcome by excitement, has to keep sticking his head out of the crate for a quick peek to make sure that his treat is coming.

Now however there’s a new routine for them to master. It can come at any time of the day, but is always signaled by the words “What day is it?”. Yep, we got a doggy advent calendar from The Beagles Bakery.

The calendar’s made of fabric, with a little pocket for each day in the countdown to Christmas

The pockets smell good..

Really good!

But this isn’t a “help yourself” deal! You have to wait for the humie to do all the fiddly ribbon removal

Then you have to wait again for the tasty treats to be removed from their cellophane wrappers. Ideally this wait is done in a sit, but sometimes it just smells so good that.. well, BOING!