In the land of the barefooted the Beagle boy with one sock is.. or should be.. king. Unfortunately, if  there’s suddenly a plentiful supply of socks due to a fresh wash, that Beagle boy and his prized possession might just end up getting ignored.

OK guys, I’ve got a sock and I’m ready to exchange it for goods and services!

Doesn’t anybody want to trade for my sock?

Clearly the bottom has fallen out of the sock market. I’m ruined. Destitute.

I may as well just sleep in the hall under the console table, like a poor homeless Beagle.

For the benefit of anyone reading this post who – like Biggles – has invested heavily in fabric foot garments and is now becoming alarmed, let me reassure you; the sock market has not crashed. There has however been a temporary trading embargo for naughty boys who’ve been nicking too many socks and refusing to come in from the garden unless offered a treat.

The timing of this is particularly unfortunate given that Biggles has only recently done something thoroughly laudible; he’s finally learned to jump into the back of the car rather than being lifted in. Now I know Beanie and every other dog in the known universe has been doing this since puppihood, but for Biggles it’s something new. It only came about because of my sore shoulder; I figured I could save myself some discomfort by teaching Biggles this new (to him) method of car entry. Needless to say I had to coax him to jump in using treats, and since then he’s been trying to get even more treats out of me by grabbing socks willy nilly and playing stubborn when coming back in from the outside loo. Still, the fact remains that at 5 years old Biggles can finally leap into the car like nearly every other adult dog, so progress has been made.

Out on our walk today it occurred to me that there might also be some progress in other areas, so I decided to test the one other skill that’s always eluded my boy: catching treats. I reached into my pocket and grabbed a handful of doggy biscuits and called him, but as often happens I got not one hound but two, both eagerly awaiting food. Of course I couldn’t treat one of them and not the other, so I threw a couple of biccies at Beanie first, in the hope that her speed and accuracy at treat catching would serve as an example to her brother. Unsurprisingly she nailed it perfectly.

Then I tried his lordship. Before I show you the result, you might like to click here and see his performance from more than three years ago. OK, now here’s the new improved 5 years old Biggles trying to catch a treat:

Notice how he closes the one eye that the treats aren’t even close to hitting. But at least this time he didn’t actually look away.

So, still some work to do there Mr Biggles. But socks, jumping into cars and treat catching still have nothing whatsoever to do with digging, which is in the title of this post. The digging comes in because last week I got to name a small crater on Mars to honor my two pups, and you can too by going here: http://www.uwingu.com/mars/. Unlike the earlier Bennu thing this is not free (naming a small crater costs $5 USD or about £3 GBP), and the name doesn’t really have any official standing, but it provides a bit of support for future space exploration and you get a certificate with a small map showing your crater. As for the name I chose for Beanie & Biggles’ crater, well…

Despite the title this post doesn’t feature any heart-rending pictures of birds coated in crude oil. That’s because the oil that invaded our local beach was palm oil, and it only became “slick” when it came out of Beanie & Biggles. I can however offer some pictures of two very tired and disgruntled little Beagles after their emergency visit to the vet..

The palm oil that washed up on our beach took the form of small boulders (about two feet long by one foot wide). Covered in sand, there was nothing to set them apart from the other rocks and debris that often line the beach – nothing but the smell, that is. They had a stench that’s been described by others as a cross between diesel and firelighters. Personally I’d say the smell also had a hint of tar and ancient cooking fat about it, but regardless, it smelled blummin’ lovely to a certain pair of Beagles.

We were on one of our regular beach runs, and we’d just reached what appeared to be the ideal location for a short offlead romp. As I unhooked their lines, I fully expected Beanie to take off after the birds hanging out by the water’s edge, and Biggles to go after her baying at full volume. Instead, first Beanie, then her brother, made an abrupt 90 degree turn and sprinted off further inland. Beanie was the first to come to a stop and seemed very interested in something. I figured it was most likely poo from a horse or a dog, or possibly another dead bird carcass, because we’d seen a few of them on the beach recently. I watched her for a few seconds to see if she was going to lose interest and come sprinting back to me for a lump of chicken, but no, she stayed put and soon Biggles joined her. Alarm bells started ringing; anytime one of our Beagles wants something more than chicken, it can’t be a good thing. I ran over and found each of them nibbling away at several sand-covered boulders. There were white patches where they’d been nibbling, and whatever it was I didn’t want them nibbling any more of it, but getting them back on lead was not easy because they really wanted that white stuff. After several tries I secured both of them, and grabbed a sample of the white stuff in a poo bag. It felt like soft soap as I scooped it up, but it didn’t smell like soap.

There followed a fast run back to the car, a hurried drive back home, and then once Susan had smelled the sample, an even more hurried drive to the vet. It turned out that vets along the coast had seen this stuff before, and the recommended course of action was induced vomiting which is simultaneously Beanie & Biggles’ most favorite and least favorite veterinary treatment. You see Beanie kind of likes the injection (bizarre I know, but that’s Beanie for you) but they both really like the gratuitous feeding that follows it. In this case all the vet had to hand was a pouch of Whiskas. Yes, our Beagles gorged themselves on cat food (oh the shame) and loved it. They were on a high; this cat food stuff was really tasty, even tastier than the rancid white stuff they’d had earlier.  And yet, as so often happens at the vet, what went down quickly soon came up even more quickly. I won’t go into the gory details, but the cleanup needed two kitchen rolls and a quarter of a bottle of disinfectant spray. At times it was difficult to know where to put your feet to avoid stepping on that which had already come up, yet not get hit by that which was yet to come. And oh god the stench..

Happily we’d acted quickly enough to get all or most of the palm oil out of them before it could cause a blockage or severe dehydration. Let enough of this stuff stay in your dog for too long, and apparently it can kill: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-cornwall-26172678. Even more happily, the vet confirmed that Beanie & Biggles now jointly hold the practice record for most induced vomiting treatments!

It’s now several days after all the drama, and Beanie & Biggles are both back to full health. Beanie came in from the garden this morning covered in mud after embarking on yet another dig-to-Australia project, and Biggles has torn up both of the free rolls of recycling bags gifted to us by the council a few days ago. As for the palm oil, well I complained to both the council and SEPA about it, and apparently it has now been cleaned up, but I think I’ll give the beach a wide berth for a while longer…

I am NEVER going to eat Whiskas again. Probably.