Raging River

Posted on September 30, 2010 by Susan

We had some fairly heavy rainfall yesterday and the little trickly burn at the bottom of our garden turned into a raging river!

Here’s a photo of our burn taken last month – you can just about make out a little trickling burn by the yellow flowers:

And a video taken yesterday:

I’m glad we decided to put a nice solid fence between our Beaglets and the burn!

I had planned to plant lots of wildflowers along the bank of the burn. I wonder if they’ll survive flooding like this? It doesn’t happen often and the water drains away very quickly when the rain stops. I’ve also got a ton of bulbs to plan at the bottom of the garden inside the fence but I’m wondering how they’ll cope with occasional flooding. Back to the drawing board!

Ayrshire Cancer Support 6K

Posted on September 28, 2010 by Paul

Beanie and Biggles notched up their first 6K road race on Saturday. The race is a regular event in Ayr, and is held to raise money for Ayrshire Cancer Support.

The turnout was quite small compared to the 5Ks we’ve run in Glasgow, which surprised me a little. After all, the weather was perfect – bright and sunny but still quite cool, and the course is flat and linear: starting at the Amphitheatre, you run left along the promenade up to the Doon Estuary Bridge, then return. The views along the sea front are spectacular, some of the runners wear entertaining costumes, and all the proceeds from entry fees and sponsorship go to fight cancer. What more could you want from a road race?

Biggles’ answer to that question might well be “candy floss”. There was a sizable chunk of the stuff lying on the pavement about halfway along the promenade and fortunately or unfortunately – depending on how many legs you have – I saw it first and denied Biggles his chance to grab it. As often happens, what Biggles misses, Beanie gets; that candy floss was half way down Beanie’s throat before Susan could react. Biggles still got the satisfaction of being the first dog to finish though, despite having me in tow!

We met up by the Amphitheatre after the race and broke open the water from our goody bags. One of the first aiders spotted Beanie & Biggles drinking from our hands and kindly brought over a sick bowl. Sadly for our two Beagles the bowl didn’t come with any vomit in it (they’re both very partial to a bit of pavement pizza) but it did make it easier for them to get a good drink.

Here are a few moments from the race..

There’s another road race coming up in Ayr on 21st November – the Ayrshire Santa Dash. The entry fee gets you a Santa suit which you’re encouraged to wear during the race. It should be quite something to see a load of Santas jogging along Ayr’s promenade. I’ve got a feeling there’ll be a couple of small, four legged Santas among them!

Why Beagles Shouldn’t Do Agility!

Posted on September 24, 2010 by Paul

We’ve entered our two hooligans into a fun agility competition later in the year, and so we’re tuning up their skills so that we have a chance – however small – of them actually doing what they’re supposed to do on the day. Beanie of course can be pretty good when she feels like it, but Biggles has never really got into agility. To be fair it’s probably because he’s never had the depth of training that Beanie has, but whatever the reason, we got the feeling that while he likes the “scrambling” equipment (like the A-frame, dog walk and see-saw) he’s not keen on the jumps.

To help get him over this, we took him and Beanie for a session with Carol Rogers of Clear Run Agility. We spent a few minutes at the start of the session explaining Biggles’ apparent dislike of the jumps to Carol, and then she set up a few pieces of equipment to see our boy in action for herself. He seemed quite calm as I put him in a sit-wait and unclipped his lead, but then the little bugger took off on a sprint round the barn and leaped over every jump he could find, with a huge grin on his face the whole time. So much for the “problem” with jumps.

It seems that agility session unlocked something within him though. Yesterday I heard him “boinging” for something on the worktops in the kitchen. I was pretty sure there was nothing for him to get, other than a bit of salad packaging, so I didn’t respond immediately. The boinging sounds became a little more desperate, then abruptly they stopped, to be replaced by a rustling sound. The thing was, there was no intervening thud of something hitting the kitchen floor. That’s the normal pattern you see: boing, boing, boing, thud, scoff/rustle.

Curious, I headed into the kitchen and found Biggles standing on the worktop next to an empty pack of tomatoes. It must have taken one hell of a jump to make it up there. His elevated position had given him access to a number of previously forbidden areas, but he hadn’t used his time up there wisely; he seemed to be having trouble deciding whether he should nick something from the window sill or the sink. I didn’t give him time consider the matter further so I don’t think he got much of a reward for his efforts, but he’s been up there once and no doubt he’ll do it again. It’s a bit like we’re living a video game. Every so often Biggles gets a new “power-up”, and life gets more complicated!

Anyway, throughout all the chaos I did manage to get a couple of nice portraits of our two Beaglets this last week. I don’t how or why, but the camera always seems to make them look all innocent and angelic.