A Victory for the Humies – or have we been Beanie’d again?

Posted on August 1, 2010 by Susan

I tend to be a bit dizzy when it comes to keeping track of time. Beanie, being quite a stickler for routine had fallen into the role of time keeper. If it’s past tea-time or walk-time or getting-up-time or any-other-time she (and sometimes Biggles) will bark to remind me. It’s worked rather well.

However, our Heelwork to Music teacher, Heather pointed out that whilst this might not be a problem in itself it could well be giving Beanie the idea that it’s her responsibility to give the orders in our house. Whilst Beanie and Biggles have very good recal and are extremely responsive, if we let them off-lead to play they’ll revert to Beaglyness and tend to go out of sight (and earshot). She suggested that Beanie (and Biggles) might be a bit more inclined to keep us in their sights if they feel that we always decide what we do and when we do it.

So I’ve stopped responding to instructions from the Beaglets. So far they’ve given up control without a struggle (and we have seen improvements in attentiveness). However, this morning we had a show down!

I was lying on the sofa watching TV before our morning walk. Beanie started to bark to let me know it was time. I ignored her. The barking got more indignant. She began to whine, then howl. After about 5 minutes she resorted to what can only be described as a tantrum. She howled, barked, whined, bayed and pawed at me to get my attention. I turned my back on her. She grabbed my arm and tried to hump it. I pulled my arm away. She upped the anti a bit more and then seemed quite distressed.

She went quiet for a moment and then jumped up onto me and with body lowered and tail wagging she squeezed herself between me and the back of the sofa all the time giving me little apeasing kisses. Then, with her body pressed up as close as she could get to me she rolled onto her back to expose her tummy. I’ve never known Beanie do this – we can’t even teach her to do a roll over!

I completely melted and she gave me the biggest cuddle ever. She kept kissing me and squeezing up nice and close. I then got up to get ready for the walk. Biggles tailed me as usual as I went from room to room getting ready to go out. But I was aware that Beanie wasn’t there. As I went back to that hall there she was in a perfect little sit waiting for me to tell her what to do. I hadn’t asked her to do this. I gave her a treat, popped her lead on and we all went out.

So, what do you think. Was this a victory or have I been manipulated by the Beanster…..again?

Ticked Off!

Posted on July 31, 2010 by Paul

Back in June we all went up Goat Fell on the Isle of Arran. On the ferry back, a couple we got talking to warned us to check Beanie & Biggles for ticks; apparently Arran has a big population of these unpleasant little critters. We carried out a half-arsed examination of our two pups but unsurprisingly found nothing, so the whole subject was completely forgotten.

A couple of days later, it became apparent that our tick search should have been much more thorough. Now fully engorged on our dogs’ blood, they were really easy to spot. Beanie had one on her eyebrow and one on her neck, while Biggles had a couple in the area around his naughty bits! We didn’t have a proper tick tool, so I grabbed a pair of tweezers and proceeded with the extraction. It was actually quite easy to remove Beanie’s ticks, because she held very still while I got a good grip, twisted and pulled. As far as I could see I got both ticks out fully (without leaving behind their mouth parts) though they kind of exploded from the pressure of the tweezers once I’d got them clear of Beanie. It was way, way harder to remove Biggles’ ticks. He’s never liked anybody, human or dog, messing about around his joy department and he wriggled about like a thing possessed. Trying to bullseye ticks with the tweezers while he was struggling like that was difficult in the extreme. It would have been easier to play “Operation” on the top of a washing machine doing its spin cycle. Anyway I eventually pulled the ticks, or at least their bodies, off my boy and happily neither our two dogs nor us suffered any ill effects.

The experience convinced me that we needed a proper tick extraction tool, so I hunted about on Amazon for a bit and eventually ended up with an “O’Tom Tick Twister‘.

It was the only device that didn’t seem to be a variation on tweezers and had good reviews. I popped it in our doggy care kit and promptly forgot about it – until yesterday that is! A couple of days ago we had a long walk around Culzean Castle, and then yesterday Susan spotted a tick on Biggles as he rolled over for a tummy tickle. Curiously it had chosen to attach itself to his nether regions again. Biggles’ nethers have always attracted other male dogs, but now they’re clearly a magnet for ticks as well. It’s a hard life being a Bigglet.

I went to get the tick twister, while Susan prepared to put our new Biggles handling routine to the test. Happily both the twister and the handling worked beautifully. Biggles struggled for a couple of secs then calmed right down, allowing me to go to work unhassled.

The twister kit contains two different sized plastic er.. well, let’s call them “forks” for want of a better term.

The idea is to slide the appropriate sized fork in around the tick’s attachment point. Once the tick’s mouth is securely gripped by the “V” of the fork, twist slightly and pull the nasty little critter off your dog. When I tried this on Biggles it worked perfectly! The tick came away intact and alive, so I wrapped it in toilet paper, squished it and gave it a burial at sea (flushed the bugger down the loo).

So now we’ve got a tick remover that really works and a little boy that doesn’t mind us handling him as long as we go about it the right way. We do however still have a spoiled little girl who tends to get stroppy if she doesn’t get her own way. We’ve been taking care to win all our little battles with her, but she still vocalizes her indignation when her demands aren’t met, as evidenced by this photo from our visit to Culzean:

Beanie seeks an answer from the heavens! It’s time for more treats but the humans aren’t taking the hint! Why??!!!

A couple more shots from our dreary but still enjoyable day at Culzean:

Glasgow Big Fun Run 2010

Posted on July 24, 2010 by Paul

The Big Fun Run is one of the growing number of short (5K) races that allow dogs to run alongside their owners. Beanie took part in the first one in Bellahouston Park in 2008 running for Beagle Welfare, but today she and Biggles were just in it for fun. We’d missed last year’s race, and we were impressed at how the event had grown in the interim: more runners, more entertainment, and more costumes!

Real Radio is one of the high profile partners for the race, and their mascot is a Basset called Barry. As luck would have it he turned up to cheer all the runners on, but he was considerably larger in the flesh than he appears in the station’s adverts, and he spent a suspiciously long time walking on two legs. As Beanie & Biggles were the only Beagles in this year’s race I figured that their fellow hound might come over for a chat, and sure enough he did. I don’t think his approach complied with accepted pack protocol however, because he immediately found himself on the receiving end of a severe, and I mean severe, woofing. His reaction showed no remorse whatsoever – he didn’t seem to take the woofing seriously at all, but that’s Bassets for you!

Ten minutes before the race was due to start an official warmup was held featuring a fitness instructor and a couple of Glasgow’s premier cheerleaders . Generally speaking we’re not much into organized warmups, but Beanie seemed willing to give it a go.

The start of the race was very noisy, but Beanie & Biggles weren’t phased by it and got off to a good start. As usual I was partnered by the Bigglet while Beanie was Susan’s running partner. A lot of runners fell to walking pace by the end of the first kilometer so we had a lot of overtaking to do. In previous road races this was hard work because I had to guide Biggles through all the gaps, but today he knew exactly what to do and expertly weaved his way past all the walkers with hardly any direction from me. The course had a lot of twists and turns but he took every corner correctly and without guidance. When a couple of uncontrolled mutts strayed onto the course and ran up to him, he stayed resolutely focused on his task and ran straight past them without even a backward glance. I’ve said that Biggles is a great jogging companion before, but today his performance was truly flawless. I really felt we were running as a team, and we set a good pace for the first 3km or so.

As we entered the closing stages of the race, I started flagging quite badly. It was a typical Glasgow “summer” day – overcast, unpleasantly warm and very humid (though not actually raining , so I guess not truly “typical”) and I just didn’t seem to have any energy left. Fortunately Biggles’ enthusiasm didn’t falter once and I kept trudging on so as not to let my boy down. When we crossed the finish line he rightly got a lot of attention from the master of ceremonies and the crowd. I’m not sure, but I think he was the first dog to finish! Beanie also ran a great race, sometimes running ahead of Susan to encourage her onward, and sometimes jogging smartly to heel in the hope of getting another piece of kibble.

Here’s a bit of video from the day.You’ll see the aforementioned severe woofing directed at Barry the Basset, the exciting start of the race, Susan & Beanie’s finish, and the post-race refreshment and goody-bag rummage.

Despite a thorough inspection by Beagle Customs the goody bags were found to be completely devoid of any edibles. Our two did get rather nice medals for completing the race though!

Afterwards we headed to Pets At Home in Renfrew and treated them both to posh new collars. This wasn’t purely an indulgence; yesterday Biggles somehow broke part of the metal buckle on his collar, and earlier in the week he managed to chomp through a couple of leads. Nothing seems to last long with Beagles!