I See a Seesaw

Posted on July 6, 2010 by Susan

Inspired by Luisa and Chief the Beagle’s great performance at the Eglington Agility show at the weekend we decided to get some contact equipment for Beanie and Biggles – a dog walk, A-frame and a seesaw. The seesaw arrived this morning.

Beanie and Biggles were very excited and kindly helped us unpack all the pieces.

It all went together very quickly and we soon had it assembled and located at the bottom of the garden. I went indoors to get some training treats and my clicker and had a think about how to go about teaching Beanie and Biggles. I figured the first step would be to build up their confidence – it’s bound to be scary for a little Beaglet when that seesaw starts to tip….

Then I looked down the garden and saw Beanie and Biggles taking it in turns to sprint over the seesaw at top speed – they didn’t even seem to notice the thing tipping!

That left me at a bit of a loss as to what to do. The dogs I’d seen at competitions all seemed to stop/slow half way along the seesaw so that it tipped slowly. How to get my two dare devils to do that? We played with the seesaw for a couple of minutes then decided to call it a day until I’d found out more about it.

I’m beginning to think that the pups were doing it right without me!

Beanie and Biggles were keen to do more so we did a little bit of weaving. The method I used to teach Beanie to weave doesn’t work with Biggles but I think we’ve now found an approach that will suit him. I break the weave poles into three sets of two poles and stagger them. This allows him to go through a full set of weaves quite easily – he only has to learn to walk between two poles and keep repeating. Gradually we’ll move them closer and closer together until he’s doing it properly.

Beanie is starting to get very good. She’s getting quite fast and reliably enters the weaves correctly from pretty much any angle no matter where I am standing.

Little Green Pixie Boots

Posted on July 4, 2010 by Paul

We had a pleasant surprise on our walk around Eglinton park yesterday – an agility competition was being held there and we bumped into fellow Newlin Beagle Chief. We hung around a bit to watch him do his thing…

…and though he had a bit of a naughty Beagle episode on one of his runs, he was very impressive!

There are more pics from the agility on Flickr here.

After the spectating and walking was done we headed back home and I broke out the lawn mower to give the grass a trim. Beanie & Biggles graciously decided to help me, though I didn’t really understand how grabbing a pair of Susan’s jeans off the airer and running about the garden playing tug with them was supposed to help. Regardless, their dedication was such that by the time I’d finished they had heavy grass stains on their paws and it looked like they were wearing little green boots.

Schiehallion

Posted on June 30, 2010 by Paul

Schiehallion comes in at number 6 on this handy page of “easy” munros. A bit of Googling got us a more complete description of the walk than that site provides, and crucially, satnav coords (Lat 56°40’32.88″, Long -4°2’9.6″) to the car park at the start of the walk. As previous posts have shown we’re both really good at getting lost, so precise satnav directions are always a boon. I know these gizmos can sometimes let you down, but since replacing the standard female voice with that of Mr T I’ve been even happier to entrust all navigation to the power of satnav. Can you imagine Mr T ever getting lost? No way fool!

All the write-ups I could find for this walk enthuse about the quality of the recently upgraded path. Some note that the path doesn’t go all the way to the summit, but still rate the walk as pretty unchallenging. This created a vision of an easy 4-5 hour stroll in our heads, and the first hour or so of walking matched our expectations. The path was just great – some sections were steep and kind of monotonous, but it was shaping up to be the easiest munro we’ve done.

A while further on we hit a little plateau with a cairn on it:

That cairn effectively marked the end of the clear path we’d been on so far. From here on in you mostly had to pick your own way through an increasingly boulder-strewn landscape.

Some of the time a trail of rubble indicated the way forward, and after a while we had the reassurance of another cairn, this time with a short wall extending out from it. I have no idea what the wall was for, but apparently it smelled quite nice.

From this point there was never any doubt about which way to go – we just had to follow the ridge up to the top. I was very glad we both had substantial walking boots though; some of the rocks were loose and it would’ve been quite easy to end up with a sprained ankle.

The best way to make good progress was to dodge the rubble and aim to step on only the more substantial rocks. Easier said than done when you’ve got a couple of eager Beagles trying to pull you in different directions! In the end I decided to stop trying to lead the way and pretty much followed Biggles. He seemed to favor the bigger stones, whereas Beanie seemed determined to weave her way through every little nook and cranny.

Biggles – the ultimate Sherpa Beagle

I must admit I started to really enjoy walking over all those rocks. Having to pick and choose every step took my mind off the effort of the climb, turning it almost into a game. At one point we saw another cairn above us and for a second we wondered if it marked the summit, but it was just an impostor. A little further on we found another, though this one was obviously a fake. I was very doubtful when I saw yet another, but this time there was nowhere to go beyond it and I realized we’d finally hit the top.

Not too far now!

The last cairn!

Made it!

Obviously it was time for treats and some bold exploration:

Some more shots from the top:

The way down was straightforward if a little hard on the knees, and back at the bottom I was tired but my leg muscles didn’t feel burned in the usual way – I think walking over all those boulders was more of a challenge for the stabilizers than the main driving muscles, so to speak. It’s close, but overall I reckon Schiehallion was our most enjoyable munro to date!