Yep it’s that time of year when Biggles temporarily catches up with Beanie age-wise. On Tuesday he was four years old, just like his sister. As tradition demanded Beanie administered the Beagle equivalent of birthday bumps, and then I took them both for a run on the beach.

Birthday bumps.. Beagle style!

As the day progressed it became evident that the extra year on Biggles’ age had brought with it additional confidence and maturity. When Susan left her new foam roller unguarded (used for getting the kinks out of tired muscles), Biggles picked it up and carried it to his basket without a single guilty backward glance. His self-assured trot said “I’m just taking this, OK”. When Beanie tried to push him out of the basket with plushest blanket he gave her a robust humping. Obviously that wasn’t the best of decisions because she mercilessly yanked on his tail for some time afterwards. Nevertheless, it was clear that this was Biggles reborn: older, not particularly wiser, but bolder – much bolder. Oh yes, this worm had turned.. right onto his back for a tummy tickle!

Another questionable decision came when a delivery guy brought a mysterious cardboard box. Biggles had any number of ways to react to this intruder, but he chose the woofy one. Mr Delivery Guy was not phased by the noisy outburst, which was very fortunate because otherwise Biggles would have missed out on the best part part of his birthday (more on that in due course). In addition to the woofing, the afternoon passed with much napping and snoring and before long it was time for the second walk. I took them over to Troon for a rocky scramble along the shore and a game of chase hide-and-seek.

Dad, you do know it’s teatime already, right? Just saying.

Where’s that pesky sister of mine gone?

She’s around here somewhere!

She’s behind me isn’t she?

A moment of quiet contemplation before our return home..

When we got back home Beanie & Biggles took up position by the kitchen door to wait for their second meal of the day. When it finally came the usual teatime routine was observed; Biggles did a power-boing and managed to nose the bottom of his bowl even though Susan was holding it at her head height, while Beanie did her ritual “gimme the food dance”. They then raced to their serving positions and went into a sit. Beanie held her sit perfectly, her bum seemingly welded to the floor by the power of the approaching kibble. Biggles, as always, struggled to keep his rear end from lifting and wagging. The seconds dragged by until the “Take it” command was given, whereupon small chunks of Burns Alert went flying all over the hall as they dived into their bowls. This time the servings were disappointingly small, but before a protest could ensue I ushered Biggles into our posh (mostly Beagle-free) lounge to investigate the mysterious box that had arrived earlier.

The first thing to come out of the box was a brown bag held closed by a little golden paw sticker. Whatever was in there, it smelled really, really good.

Blimey, it’s a biccie with Biggles’ name written on it!

There goes the UK record for speed eating

Also inside the mystery box.. another box..

Containing an extra large Wuffin! It’s Wuffinzilla!

A while back when we’d sampled the delights of The Beagles Bakery I’d been torn between ordering personalized biscuits vs. wuffins for Biggles’ birthday. As you can see I resolved the dilemma by getting both. I have to say though that these birthday wuffins were even bigger than the ones we had before. Biggles did really well to contain himself until I gave him the order to take his wuffin, but a split-second later he pounced on it so eagerly that it virtually exploded. He was merrily hoovering up crumbs from the floor for the next five minutes!

Since the day was also Beanie’s unbirthday, she got one too.
Happy 4th Birthday Biggles, and happy unbirthday Beanie!

It rained heavily and without pause for most of today, leading to a sub-par main dog walk and no play time in the garden. Result? Hyperactive Beagles, especially Beanie. Suddenly my desk was no longer off-limits, whether I was sitting at it or not.

Getting bolder. I’m sat at my desk but she still has to investigate

Looks like I could be about to lose my network connection

Eventually I’d had enough. I handed out the one punishment that our little girl fears above all others: I grabbed her, cuddled her in front of the window in full view of the neighbors (huge loss of street cred) and blew a raspberry in her tummy. It sort of worked, in that she stopped invading my work area while I was present, but there were two undesirable side effects:

• I had Beagle hairs on my tongue for ages afterwards
• She still snook up onto my desk whenever my back was turned, and when I eventually caught her in the act she made a desperate bid to escape a further raspberrying, sending everything flying.

The outbreak of naughtiness wasn’t confined to my desk of course.

Here’s that box you were looking for..

Towel wars!!!

In our house merely opening the cupboard that holds all the dog food causes a stampede. Wherever they are – regardless of whether they’re apparently fast asleep, raiding my sock drawer or tearing up newly delivered mail – they come running to see what nice thing they’re about to get. If that nice thing is a chew, then there’s another stampede as soon as they get it, because as everyone knows you can’t eat a chew just anywhere.

By far the favorite chew consumption area is a corridor by our bedroom. I guess they like it because it’s a safe secluded place. Biggles prefers to be right down at the farthest end, behind Beanie, but that causes problems because when he finishes his chew first, he’s trapped. The only way out of the corridor is past Beanie, and he’s not at all keen about passing close to her when she’s eating a chew. Being Biggles, he’s not content to just wait patiently for the two minutes it’ll take her to finish, so he woofs loudly to request an escort. To get peace, either Susan or myself has to literally provide him with a human shield so that he can pass safely through the Beanie danger zone.

As a workaround I recently tried handing Beanie her chew first, then motioning Biggles into the lounge and delivering his chew in there. My thinking behind this was: 1) he might just eat the chew in the lounge, and in any case 2) Beanie has by this time already taken up residence in the corridor, effectively blocking it. Either way, the problem is solved right? Wrong. Biggles scampered round the lounge frantically trying different candidate chew eating locations. Clearly none of them were any good because he then shot past me out of the lounge and straight down to the end of the corridor, passing a happily munching Beanie on the way! There he was finally able to consume his treat. And of course he still finished it first, found himself trapped at the dead end of the corridor and woofed loudly for an escort. Again.

Thanks to my experience with Dungeons & Dragons style fantasy games I immediately understood what had transpired. Clearly Biggles’ chew had been a magical item, temporarily rendering its holder immune to tellings-off from one’s sister. That’s right, Biggles had found the legendary Chew Of Invulnerability [single use]. With the chew in his mouth he’d been able to march past Beanie safely, but once it had gone he’d had no choice but to call for assistance.

Behold the magical Chew of Invulnerability. Note that once the chew has been consumed its protection expires and the user is once again at risk of severe grumpage, albeit with a slightly a fuller tummy

The crazy thing about all this is that Beanie has never actually grumped at Biggles for passing close by her while she’s eating; she’s oblivious to most things when something edible is actually between her jaws. In fact our two are getting on particularly well at the moment. There haven’t been any fall-outs in the house and outside play has been great, with much chasing and even a high-speed variant of hide-and-seek where each of them dives behind bushes and hillocks to throw the other off the trail.

I guess it doesn’t have to make any sense. It’s just one of those little Bigglisms that makes living with our two monkeys so.. interesting..