The Curse Of The Poo Gloves

Posted on April 8, 2013 by Paul

Some days ago we took our cheeky monkeys to another little town on Ayrshire’s coast called Seamill. It’s a lovely place; so lovely in fact that I went back later the same day and got this beautiful shot of Arran still covered in a blanket of snow:

Parts of Seamill beach are very rocky and Beanie & Biggles had a great time scrambling over all the lumps and bumps. They also at various times had things in their mouths that shouldn’t be there: shells, pieces of driftwood, burst tennis balls, and bits of seaweed. Beanie seemed particularly enamored with one piece of seaweed and Susan – who was wearing gloves – pried open Beanie’s jaws to investigate. Unsurprisingly the “seaweed” turned out to be a piece of sea-washed, sun-dried poo and said poo was now all over Susan’s gloves. We both made a mental note that those gloves would need a wash and continued with our walk.

The next day it was time for my weekly 10k on the beach with my two furry running buddies. I got changed into my (very) cold weather running gear and went through my pre-run checklist:

Harnesses? Yep.
Tape extending leads for more scampering fun? Yep.
Running belt pouch filled with poo bags, dog biscuits and a few lumps of chicken? Yep! (By way of confirmation Beanie tried to grab my belt and scarper off with it down the corridor)
MP3 player & earphones? Yep.
Beanie (my running cap that is, not the Beagle of the same name)? Yep.
Thin but surprisingly effective running gloves? Nope!!

I couldn’t find my gloves in the usual places so I asked Susan if she’d seen them, and it turned out they’d just been washed but weren’t yet dry. This was not good news as it was cold and the inevitable wind-chill on the beach would quickly render my hands incapable of controlling the extending leads. Fortunately I discovered a pair of gloves in the boot of the car as I loaded the Beaglets into their crates, so finally we were good to go.

Once at the beach I got out of the car, uttered a couple of expletives to no-one in particular about how cold it was and headed down to the strip of firm sand right down by the water, deftly navigating the pups past the shell fragments dropped by seagulls, the McDonalds wrappers dropped by humies, and the huge piles of poo dropped by horses. I turned on my MP3 player and as AC/DC’s “For those about to rock” started up the three of us began our run. As tradition demands ten steps later we stopped our run, and I dug around in my running pouch for a poo bag while the other two members of our party emptied their bowels. I deftly navigated the woofers back through the gauntlet of poo, wrappers and shells to make our deposit in the nearest poo bank aka bin. Then we turned around, passed through all the hazards for the third time (third time lucky for Biggles because he snagged a gobful of horse muck) and got under way again. This was it: 5k out, 5k back and nothing to detract from the fun.

Nothing that is, apart from my gloves. Yep, the gloves I was wearing were the ones smothered in poo from the previous night. I only found this out when I used them to flick drops of sweat from the end of my nose and experienced an unpleasant but all too familiar odor. I made a mental note to only use certain cleaner parts of the gloves for future sweat clearance operations, but when I’m running with the pups I get so engrossed in doggy management that everything else is forgotten. You know that phrase “Here’s mud in your eye“? Well in my case it wasn’t mud. Anyway when we got back home that pair of gloves finally went for a good wash and I went for a good shower!

Sometimes on our weekly runs we do the outward half on the sand, and return via the dunes above the beach. This is great fun for me and the Beagles because the track is narrow, winding and goes up and down like a kid on a pogo stick (or Biggles trying to grab the bread from the kitchen worktop). On our most recent outing I took along my head camera, and the result is below. You’ll notice that at one point Beanie & Biggles get offlead for a short but crazy sprint workout of their own. I’ve found that as long as I do this after we’ve got a couple of on-lead speed drills under our belt, they’re reasonably well behaved (though it also helps if the beach is clear of distractions and I’ve got a sizeable lump of chicken in my belt pouch!)

Dune Run from Paul Roberts on Vimeo.

Now that was a workout!

New Chicken Sprint Record!

Posted on March 24, 2013 by Paul

Last night’s final walk didn’t go to plan at all. I had trouble getting Beanie & Biggles’ leads on, and I virtually had to drag them out of the door. I thought things might improve once we got a little distance from the house, but I was wrong; Beanie was preoccupied throughout the walk and Biggles kept dragging his heels and looking back over his shoulder towards home. At one point they both made an attempt at gobbling up some crisps some kids had dropped and Biggles tried to pee on a lamp-post (and missed) but it was all half-hearted. However, when we eventually turned around and headed back home all that changed abruptly; suddenly their enthusiasm returned and Biggles began tugging ahead on his lead, trying to quicken the pace. By the time we turned into the road to our house they were both pulling like trains and I’d had enough of trying to fight it. I broke into a jog, then a run, then a sprint. Biggles let loose a jubilant howl like he does when we’re doing our speed training on the beach and made a playful grab at Beanie’s ear, and the three of us got faster and faster as we approached our front door. The reason for this extreme departure from normal walking protocol? Chicken soup!!!

Eyes almost as big as his bowl, head mostly still while his lower half wags and trembles for all it’s worth! Biggles is more like a Disney cartoon character than a real Beagle when chicken soup is coming his way!

When I say “soup” it was really chicken meat and rice simmered together for hours in the juices of a left-over chicken carcass. Beanie and especially Biggles always seem to know when something is being cooked specifically for them, and they didn’t want a silly walk to come between them and their five star dining experience.

As it turned out that was the second walk to go awry this week. The first was at Loch Doon. I’d been wanting to give the pups a stimulating country walk and when I saw what appeared to be a brief spell of clear sunny weather in the Dalmellington area there was no hesitation; I hurriedly crammed the pups and my hefty camera backpack into the car and off we went. Things were looking great until the final ten minutes of the drive when the sky clouded over and the wind picked up, but I still had high hopes. My goal was to head up the Craiglea trail and get some nice panoramas of the Loch, and I as parked up I was expecting a colder, winder and cloudier version of this, our previous visit:

Unfortunately, what we actually got was this:

Although the temperature was only around freezing, the wind-chill was fierce and surprisingly thick snow covered all traces of the path as we got higher. Beanie was loving it; she quickly adopted a dolphin-like leaping technique that let her cover ground quickly without getting bogged down by the snow.

Biggles and myself were rather less keen on the conditions but we let Beanie’s boundless enthusiasm carry us (drag us, to be more precise) further up the hill. In due course we reached a plateau still some distance below the true summit, and I decided to call it a day at that point; I was chilled to the bone and unbeknownst to the pups my treat pocket was almost empty. It was the right call, but it wasn’t the most popular decision I’ve ever made, at least not for Beanie.

No! Let’s keep going Dad! Higher! Higher!

I hung around shivering my arse off while Biggles wrote his name in the snow using his special yellow ink (Beagle spelling is different from ours, but Biggly assured me that he got his name right), and then I had to wait even longer for a wrestling match to complete, but eventually I got our party turned around and we began our descent. As has happened before, the snow actually made the walk down much easier and once we hit the tree line the wind was all but gone. But Beanie was still not happy about being cheated out of a summit!

At least we’d had a good workout, and we got a nice long nap in the warmth when we got back home!

Auchincruive: Training Ground For Ninja Sheep!

Posted on March 9, 2013 by Paul

We’ve walked around the Auchincruive estate many times, never realizing that it is in fact an undercover facility dedicated to training sheep in the ancient ways of concealment, espionage, sabotage and assassination. It’s only thanks to the superior senses of Beanie & Biggles that I’m able finally to expose this place for what it really is: a ninja sheep factory.

With the benefit of hindsight I realize that the clues have always been there. The place is like a military assault course; it has steep hills and is packed with obstacles such as fallen trees, muddy bogs and steep drops, all of which appear natural but are in truth deliberately constructed to produce sheep with uncommon agility, speed and endurance.

These tree trunks are the perfect for scrambling over if you’re a sheep. Or a Beagle!!!

A stretch of sticky mud. Ideal for testing leg strength and traction..

An innocent log, or a training aid to improve a sheep’s balancing ability?

A perilous cliff overlooks a stretch of deep water, clearly intended to produce sheep that can swim and climb!

Even with all these clues the four us might still have failed to detect Auchincruive’s hidden purpose. And yet, as we reached the top of another hill, Beanie got the feeling that we were not alone.

We sensory-deprived humies couldn’t see, hear or smell anything untoward, but Biggles agreed with Beanie that there was something here. Something right under our noses, two of which were jet-black, moist and now twitching intently.

Time to sound the alarm!

Still we couldn’t see what all the fuss was about and I was on the verge of declaring this a “Bogus Woofing” when I saw movement out of the corner of my eye. I strained to focus on the source of the movement and finally spotted, on the river bank below us, a concealed sheep. It must have been some kind of super-sheep to get down there in the first place. That, combined with the fact that I was unable to get any direct shots of it with my camera, was sufficient proof that it was a ninja!

Fearing assassination now that the sheep had been exposed, we hurried away. Between us and the safety of our car lay further obstacles: more fallen trees, bridge crossings, and dangerously narrow trails by the side of a raging torrent..

Come on Mum, that sheep is after us!

I was convinced that highly trained and highly dangerous sheep were waiting to ambush us at every turn and yet, as the sun began to set, we made it back to the starting point of our walk and escaped in the car.

Is a band of ninja sheep hiding round that corner?

Will we live to see another day?

Nearly back to safety!

Yes! Deliverance! And just as well ‘cos it’s time for our tea!

So there you have it. Auchincruive is very pretty, but it’s a breeding ground for some of the most highly trained sheep you’ll ever encounter. Go there at your own risk!