Biggles’ Second Birthday!

Posted on August 28, 2010 by Paul

The Biggly Boy is two today!

We had a little celebration, actually kind of an agility party, a couple of days ago when the weather was behaving itself. While we were putting up the balloons and agility equipment, Biggles made himself comfy on a couple of canvas chairs we’d left outside to dry after their thorough soaking at lure coursing on Sunday.

The chairs are kind of wobbly and I didn’t think he’d be keen on them, certainly Beanie wasn’t, but he loved the way the seat bottom molded to his shape. They do have one major design flaw though:

Comfy seat – but I can’t reach my beer!

We had two guests for the party, fellow Beagle Bundy and Ru. They each had a go at the agility course and did very well, albeit with a couple of false starts.

What do ya mean I’m supposed to jump it?

OK, got it!

Just like Beanie & Biggles, Bundy had absolutely no fear of the seesaw

Ru was a natural at the jumps!

Obviously no birthday party would be complete without a cake – a sardine cake in this case!

Of course any time you get three Beagles round a table with a tasty, smelly cake on it you can’t really expect to see good table manners.

It’s impolite to howl when the service is a little slow

One shouldn’t chew with one’s mouth open

I’m sure there are also rules about not resting one’s chin on the table..

..not swallowing one’s food without chewing it at least once

..and not proceeding to consume one’s plate immediately after finishing one’s cake

The noise those three Beagles made was deafening. If I ever get to see a full pack of working Beagles going on a hunt I’m going to need earplugs. And through all this, Ru sat quietly by his owner’s side and didn’t misbehave once. Non-beagle owners have no idea how easy they’ve got it!

Despite the noise and dodgy table manners, I couldn’t help feeling proud of how Biggles has turned out. He’s come on in leaps, bounds and boings since we got a little help with his possessiveness. Admittedly the life expectancy of teatowels, toilet rolls and dishcloths is still rather short in our house, but Biggles is now far more willing to give things up and follow our directions even when there’s no immediate reward in sight. As far as I’m concerned he’s the best Beagle boy there is!

The weekend that was

Posted on August 24, 2010 by Paul

We had a brilliant time over the weekend. First Beanie & Biggles got to play with their new tyre jump:

Beanie took to it straight away but Biggles needed a little encouragement. I don’t think he was scared of it, he just doesn’t see the point in jumping through something when it’s easier and just as quick to go round it. In some ways I’m starting to think he might be the smarter of our two Beagles after all..

Anyway, after the agility practice we headed up to Irvine moor to catch what is perhaps the biggest day of the Marymass festival. The previous Saturday we got to see the Festival of Light Procession and the fireworks, this time there was a huge parade, horse racing and – my personal favorite – the climbing of the greasy pole!

The parade:

The horse racing. Not ordinary horses mind you – these were huge cart horses thundering down the track:

The greasy pole. Teams have to climb a thick, grease covered pole to retrieve a huge chunk of ham balanced on the top. How hard can it be? Well in this case, it proved to be very hard indeed:

Did they succeed? Well..

That’ll be a “no” then.

On Sunday we headed up to Rumbling Bridge for another lure coursing session. The forecasts had promised at least some decent weather but it didn’t work out that way:

Is it still raining Beanie?

Despite the rain, our two had some great races. I was really interested to see what would happen in the first one, where Beanie & Biggles got to race each other. You see last time hosts Kevin & Sue had changed the course and for the first time ever Biggles legitimately beat his sister! He just religiously followed the trail of tripe juice left by the lure, whereas Beanie tried to go too fast and lost it every time the lure changed direction.

Would Beanie avoid overshooting the corners this time? Would Biggles repeat his success?

Well, “yes” and “yes, sort of”. Beanie did a lot better on the turns this time, and Biggles did get to the lure first, but only by missing out half the course. Beanie took a slight lead down the first straight but as they approached the corner Biggles disappeared from view. I glanced round the course and finally located Biggles’ cheeky little white bum a couple of hundred yards across the field, waiting for the lure to catch up. And, as happened many times before, when it did catch up it caught him by surprise and he missed his chance to grab it.

He gave chase and arrived at the finish first, but his cheating ways (or tactical thinking if you prefer) earned him a disqualification. His other races all went the same way, but given that he was the one who consistently got a mouthful of tripe-soaked lure, I figure he went home feeling like a champ!

Thanks to Biggles, Beanie got through her first round, and I think a further round, before coming up against a rocket powered whippet. She ran her legs off, and bayed her head off, but it didn’t get her through to the final. On the other hand Kevin let her poke her snout into the tripe juice jar for a brief but heavenly sniff, so you could say she came home a winner too.

Some more shots from a great, if rather wet, day of lure coursing:

Oi! Gimme that lure back!

The full set of shots is available here.

Draglure canix

Posted on August 21, 2010 by Susan

We’re always on the lookout for new sports to try with Beanie and Biggles. They already do (and thoroughly enjoy) lure coursing and also a little bit of canix and drag hunting. So what could be better than combining all three?!

Paul had Beanie and Biggles attached to his canix harness. I set off running dragging a lure soaked in a mixture of aniseed and vegetable oil. After giving me a head start Paul and the Beaglets set off in search of me. I try and change direction when I am out of sight of the dogs in an attempt to loose them. They use a combination of scenting and sight to find me. Here’s a short video of them in action: