Recently I saw a 50-item doggy “bucket list” making the rounds and wondered how many things Beanie & Biggles had already covered. Let’s see…

1. Flop down in front of a roaring fire
   Nope. Haven’t set fire to anything (yet)
2. Swim in the sea
   Tick! Though we’re only prepared to do this if sufficiently motivated, e.g. if we’re chasing a bird or a horse
3. Play in the snow
   How can you live in Scotland and not have done this? Tick & Tick & Tick!!!
4. Dig up a flower bed
   Biggles is a bit behind the curve on this, but Beanie’s a past master. Anything that gets planted in our garden has to be heavily protected by fencing otherwise little Miss Brown Paws will certainly rip it up.
5. Redecorate a room using the “Beethoven” technique
   Sadly this is a fail for both our two, but Beagles don’t really have the right kind of fur to do this properly. However, Beanie likes to rub herself along the skirting board when she’s mucky, and Biggles has stripped the paint off some of our cupboards with his attempts to open them. Does that count?
6. Have your own spot on the sofa
   Come on, they are Beagles after all. Tick. Obviously.
7. Accompany owner on a run
   This is a regular fixture for Beanie & Biggles, though they have to run on lead due to uncontrollable naughty tendencies
8. Attend a family picnic
   This item doesn’t specify whether the picnic belongs to their own family, or some other one. Fortunately however you interpret it, they’ve got this one covered.
9. Help owner get a date
   Nope. If a Beagle manages to get a date or any other kind of fruit, said Beagle will simply consume it on the spot instead of sharing it with their owner.
10. Lift owner’s spirits on a bad day
    Tick. Beagles are natural entertainers! What’s more, Beanie always comes running with her tail on turbo wag if either of us ever gets injured. After all, an injured humie is less able to protect their pockets from a good rummaging.
11. Visit a different continent
    Does a trip to Arran count?
12. Roll in a really mucky puddle
    Nope. No self-respecting Beagle would want to roll in a puddle! But a roll in fox poo or a rotting sheep carcass? Now you’re talking!
13. Ruin a pair of shoes
    Tick. But why stop at shoes? Socks, pants (inner and outer), coat pockets, gloves, rucksacks, the list goes on…
14. Sleep in a humie’s bed
    Tick. Every morning.
15. Wake owner with a big wet kiss
    Beanie & Biggles don’t really do kisses in the traditional doggy sense, but Beanie likes to prod our faces with her nose, and Biggles once left a wet ring of anal gland juices on my t-shirt (while I was wearing it).
16. Chase a cat during a dream
    Cats, sheep, socks and postmen have probably all been dream-chased by our two.
17. Learn “sit” in a foreign language
    No, but food is a universal language. Pull out anything tasty and their bottoms will hit the deck (but probably not for long)
18. Join in a humie’s football game
    Not yet, but Biggles in particular has the necessary skills thanks to his Trieball training.
19. Meet a famous dog
    Yes, kind of: http://www.flickr.com/photos/27172079@N08/4823945831/in/set-72157624447787375/
20. Have a go at dancing
    They’ve both had a go at Heelwork to Music, and Beanie’s even dabbled in Poopwork to Music
21. Convince your owner you can howl English words
    They’re hounds, but they haven’t really done any howling as such.
22. Get filthy within 30 minutes of a bath
    What’s a bath?
23. Howl along with your favourite song
    Does baying over the sound of the TV count?
24. Ride in an open top car
    Nope. And if they ever do, they’ll be in their harnesses and strapped down tight, ‘cos they are certainly daft enough to jump out of a moving car.
25. Learn to skateboard
    No skateboarding, but they can balance on a gym ball reasonably well!
26. Have a personalised Christmas stocking
    Of course they have. And soon they’ll have their own advent calendar..
27. Give the postie a righteous woofing
    Pfff! What self-respecting Beagles hasn’t?
28. Be a ring bearer at a wedding
    Seriously, you’d trust a Beagle not to swallow the ring?
29. Try to follow a squirrel up a tree
    I think our two are secretly afraid of squirrels. Any time they’ve crossed paths with one, they’ve made a point of pretending not to notice it. Oh the shame…
30. Go to work with your owner
    If that were to happen, it would be immediately followed by a P45
31. Have your own presence online
    You’re reading it!
32. Romp though a forest
    If a heavily wooded park counts, then yes.
33. Have a personalised kennel
    They’ve even had one built to their own specifications
34. Ride on a boat
    Yes, although the seating arrangements left something to be desired
35. Play frisbee on the beach
    Tick, though we did chew it a bit.
36. Receive your own birthday card
    Biggles has, and it was edible!
37. Steal someone’s lunch when they’re not looking
    Biggles waits until you’re not looking, but Beanie doesn’t care, she’ll just shock-and-awe her way to an extra lunch
38. Watch the washing machine for a whole cycle
    No, but Biggles has nicked socks from the tumble dryer
39. Eat doggy ice cream
    They’ve had doggy beer, but not doggy ice cream. Have to see what we can do about that…
40. Create a diversion and steal another dog’s dinner
    Who needs a diversion?
41. Run a doggy marathon
    No marathons, but they’ve done plenty of 5Ks and 10Ks
42. Receive a doggy birthday cake
    Of course!
43. Rip the stuffing out of a pillow or cushion
    Bizarrely, no cushions or pillows have been lost so far. It’s a very different story for duvets however.
44. Unwrap birthday presents
    And Christmas presents too!
45. Watch Lassie on TV
    Lassie? Who wants to watch a film about a Collie with gender confusion? Underdog is the viewing choice for the discerning Beagle!
46. Be in a family portrait
    Scores of ’em
47. Have an argument with your own reflection
    No, in fact Beanie & Biggles have never shown any interest in their reflections. But Biggles has often had a conversation with his own echo.
48. Be a regular at the local pub
    They have been in a few pubs, but we never take them back to the same one. You can probably guess why…
49. Star in a YouTube video
    How about this and this? Tick!
50. Sleep in a posh dog hotel
    Well, they’ve been in a hotel that allows dogs. I don’t know if you’d call the Travel Inn posh though. It certainly wasn’t posh after our visit!

There are a few things missing from this list though:

• Eat human poo? Tick!
• Shred a phone book?

  

  Tick!

• Almost swallow a used tampon? Tick!
• Eat half a kilo of grapes without chewing a single one of them, then vomit the whole lot back up on the floor of the emergency vet? Tick..
• Witness a sunrise from the top of a mountain? Tick!
• Manage to chew and lick a damaged pad on your rear foot no matter what size of “lampshade” collar you happen to be wearing?

  

  

  Tick!

That last one was accomplished this week. Biggles turned what was originally a little graze on a pad into an open wound by incessant licking and chewing, so we broke out the posh blue Elizabethan collar we’d used on Beanie just a few weeks before. It denied him access to his foot for maybe two minutes before he found a technique for defeating it, so I took him to the local Pet Shop to get a bigger one. We ended up with the second largest size – the biggest one that could still be tightened sufficiently around his neck, and yet within a a couple of hours he’d worked out how to beat that too.  As a fallback I’d also bought a little strap-on doggy boot so I put that on him too, hoping that the combination of the lampshade and the boot would keep his foot safe. Wrong! He stood there with his foot raised, looking very sorry for himself, and when I eventually coaxed him into taking a step with it the movement can best be described as a cross between Michael Jackson doing the “moon walk” and John Cleese in the Ministry of Silly Walks sketch. Seconds later he’d somehow pulled the boot off, so epic failure there.

With the pad wound steadily growing in size we finally took him to the vet who gave us a highly effective cream and an even larger “lampshade”. This one would look fine on a Labrador, but on Biggles it’s positively huge and he doesn’t allow for the extra clearance it needs when he’s walking. Whenever he’s on the move in the house it’s “BONK! BONK!” as he bangs into things and knocks them over. What’s more, he’s still managed to get at his foot a couple of times even through the collar, but it’s held him off just enough to let his foot heal. He’s now back to walking outside, albeit with a thick coating of Musher’s Secret on his pad for protection.

We decided to catch some sunrise moments on the two remaining days of our visit to Oban. Even at this time of year that means a very early start, making it doubly important to get a good night’s sleep beforehand. That’s why I was so pleased when, at 3am, Biggles declared quite forcefully that he needed to go outside for a trip to the loo.

A nighttime toilet walk in a campsite full of dogs is no trivial undertaking; it requires a pocket full of poo bags, a torch (preferably head-mounted to allow hands-free operation), patience mixed with a sense of urgency, and a generous helping of luck. Why? Well, the need for the poo bags and a torch is obvious. Patience is required because even a desperate little Biggly boy can’t go just anywhere – he has to sniff around a bit to find exactly the right place. Sometimes a spot that seems OK for the first couple of solids turns out not to be suitable for the rest, and he has to waddle around a bit more until he hits the right position. However, said patience must be tempered by a sense of urgency, because (1) the longer he spends out there the more likely he is to spot another human, dog or rabbit (yes, the campsite is overrun by rabbits during the hours of darkness) and burst into a baying session, oh and (2) I WANT TO GO BACK TO BED! And finally a generous helping of luck is essential, because completing the dump and getting him back into the caravan without waking everyone on the site takes a bloody miracle.

Barely a couple of hours after that upheaval all four of us were out of bed again, preparing to go up a nearby hill by the name of Ben Lora. The starting point was only a short drive from the campsite, which was good, but the walk guide I’d printed out was almost useless, which wasn’t good at all. The very first turning on it was now barred to the public! Fortunately an alternate route was pretty clearly signposted, but it was also considerably longer than the one we were expecting and sunrise wasn’t going to wait for us. We made good progress for the first section of the walk, but missed an important diversion in the darkness which swallowed up a few more precious minutes. Speaking of things being swallowed up, one section of the route was so boggy it nearly took the boots off my feet. One of the drawbacks of having Beagles out in front is that you tend to assume that anything they can walk over without sinking, we humies can walk over too. Not so!

Despite all this we made it to the top before sunrise, and got the most amazing visual treat. For such a small hill, Ben Lora delivers some incredible views.

It’s official sunrise time, but for us the sun is still hiding behind a distant peak

Rolling mist still covers much of the low ground

Looking back, the summit marker is visible on the right

And finally the sun makes an appearance!

Curiously it grew noticeably colder the moment the sun appeared, and as the mist cleared the Beagle contingent spotted some sheep. Soon after that the baying started so we didn’t hang around up there for too long. I did get one more good shot before we headed back down though.

Back at the caravan we all had breakfast, then Biggles went for a top-up nap. Susan and I tried to follow suit but Beanie had other ideas and made several attempts at raiding the breakfast leftovers. I decided to have a man-to-Beagle talk with her about this, and suggested that she take all the energy she currently uses for scavenging and redirect it into something less bothersome, like philosophy. I mean she’s certainly a smart little girl, so why couldn’t she be the first Beagle philosopher? In response she scratched an ear with one of her rear feet, planted her bum hole on the carpet, lifted her rear paws off the ground slightly and scooted from one end of the caravan to the other. I didn’t pursue the philosopher Beagle angle any further after that.

Biggles’ post-breakfast nap. Getting up to go for a poo at 3am can really tire a boy out. Wasn’t so great for me either!

Very early on our final morning we headed straight for Oban’s signature feature: McCaig’s Tower. Sitting on a hill above Oban, the tower is modelled on the Colosseum in Rome. It was never completed and is now just an ornate shell surrounding a rather nice garden. I’d visited it briefly the previous evening to scout it out and somehow managed to get one shot that didn’t include the hordes of Japanese tourists taking group photos with their phones.

In the morning however- about half an hour before sunrise – there was scarcely anyone about and the views of Oban from the tower’s front platform were very nice indeed.

The ferry takes pride of place in the center of the photo

Beanie and Biggles didn’t bother much with the views because there were fast food debris inside the tower that urgently required their attention. As the sun rose and they explored the outside of the tower, they even found a bush with blackberries ripe for picking.

The first direct sunlight hits the tower’s grand entrance

More of the garden inside the tower

Beanie & Biggles’ explore the tower thoroughly..

..and Biggles raids the blackberries!

Once Biggles had finished off the blackberries he looked around for more natural snacks and discovered some rose hips. These demanded a more robust picking action than the blackberries, in fact he had to get so tough with them that he virtually uprooted the blummin’ plant. He spent the rest of the walk looking for more fruits which is a little worrying because not everything is dog friendly. If we don’t keep an eye on him there could be another trip to the vet in his future.

That visit to McCaig’s tower pretty much concluded our holiday. We’d all had a great time but judging by her reaction when we got home, I think Beanie may subscribe to Frank Sinatra’s point of view: it’s nice to go trav’ling, but it’s so much nicer to come home!