Life with Beanie's Beagle Pack

We decided to start this year’s ‘munro bagging’ with the only munro that Beanie has climbed but not Biggles – Ben Lomond.

At the summit of Ben Lomond

Beside Loch Lomond prior to our ascent

Although there’s a well worn path all the way to the summit, there are some rocky bits that can get tricky when you’ve got two wiggly Beagles determined to be exactly where you planned to put your foot!

The well worn path winding all the way back down to the banks of Loch Lomond – you can just about make out the steady stream of walkers like little ants

Busy at the summit!

Waiting patiently while dad takes lots of photos

A few hours and several miles later – back down beside Loch Lomond

Not exactly peaceful, but I’ll take play fighting over the real thing any day!

As you can see from the above shot, play between Beanie and Biggles has resumed, which I take to be a good sign that things are back on track. There have been two very minor grumps – microgrumps really – from Beanie to do with possessiveness over our bed, so we’ve decided to ban them both from the bed once again. Other than that, things have been pretty good.

Biggles’ confidence seems to be mostly restored

Unfortunately it seems to be the way with Beagles that as soon as you get one problem behind you, another one is already in line to take its place. We’re now having problems with Biggles getting over-excited and spectacularly noisy when certain other dogs are around. He’s always been prone to being woofy, and by all accounts that’s just part of the package with male Beagles, but over that last couple of weeks he has been over-reacting to other dogs when we go for a coffee after a run. He’s fine with other dogs when we’re on a walk, but in situations where we most need him to stay calm and quite – like in one of the very few park cafes in Scotland that allow dogs inside – he’s quite likely to lose his self control. To be fair it usually happens when there are other out of control or over-excited dogs around him, but his vocal outpourings are so loud and penetrating that he’s the one that gets the bad rep. Yesterday however, his rep hit a new world record low. How did he achieve this? Well it went something like this:

Woof at other dogs inside the cafe, forcing us to retreat to the outside seating
Once outside, attract the attention of other dog owners by looking particularly handsome
Drink too much water too quickly, wait until the other dogs’ owners approach and begin fondling one’s ears, then do a huge watery barf at their feet
Further impress and delight the other owners by rolling in one’s own watery vomit
Drink more water and vomit again
Start woofing at other dogs again until all attempts at staying by the cafe have been abandoned

To top it all off, Beanie also took exception to the other owners’ dog, which in all fairness was off lead, pushy, and known to be grumpy itself. All in all, not the apres-run social interaction we’d been hoping for. On the up-side, those other owners have now realized how easy they’ve got it, regardless of the problems they may have with their own dog.

To avoid a spell in the doghouse, always look cute and maybe a little forlorn after you’re been naughty.

Oh yeah, perfect!

Ben Lomond

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