Back when Monkey was a smaller boy than he is now, his big sister Poppy took him up Loudoun Hill. I had to get my hand under his bum to give him a boost up the more difficult bits, but he made it.

Now a very much bigger boy, Monkey has escorted his titch-of-a-sister Daisy on her own little adventure up the same hill.

Somewhat embarrassingly I still had to put my hand under his bum and give him a little boost up as we traversed a big step early in the walk. Given that he’s such a big boy and an extremely good jumper, I have to put this down either to a sudden lack of confidence in his own abilities, or a desire to get his behind patted by a humie. I think the odds favor the second explanation because The Monkster certainly appreciates a bit of hands-on action in the bum area, but regardless, little Daisy was so eager to make progress that she scrambled up that big step all by herself.

I was the one needing help on the way down; a week earlier I’d damaged my knee in a rather embarassing trip accident that shouldn’t have happened to anyone under the age of 70. Monkey and Daisy were of the opinion that best way to help that knee heal was to pull erratically on the steepest bits, forcing me to apply the emergency brake every couple of steps. This is probably one of the  reasons why there are no Beagle physiotherapists. In due course we got to the bottom without aggravating my injury too much, and there was lots of contented snoozing that afternoon as both pups processed all the different sights and smells they’d encountered.

Once the snoozing had concluded, it was back to business as usual!

Note the little tan spot on daisy’s tummy. She’s our first Beagle to a have a tummy marking, and she’s also our naughtiest Beagle; could that spot be where all the extra naughty is stored?

Dogs in general are considered to be quite stoic creatures, and Beagles particularly so; that is said to be one of the reasons they’re often found in research labs. Our Beagles have generally been anything but stoic. I wouldn’t call Beanie a drama queen, but she learned quickly that the best way to bend a humie to her will was to play on that humie’s concern for her wellbeing. Biggles was quite a bold little boy, but he wasn’t stoic; the tiniest little thorn would bring him to a halt with his paw raised in urgent need of a magic rub. Biggles taught his paw-raising skills to Poppy and Monkey, but Monkey quickly surpassed his mentor. He isn’t merely non-stoic, he’s anti-stoic. Every day he faces the threat of Monkeycide; to survive, he must raise the alarm at the merest hint of a threat. Pool of water? A potential attempt to drown him! Unidentified food item? Undoubtedly poison! Grit between his toes? A deliberate attempt to hobble him, so that he can’t escape the next attack.

It’s good to rest..
But the prudent Monkey always keeps at least one eye open for approaching danger!

Daisy – as I found out just a few days ago – is very different. She may seem to be all softness and cuddles, but her upper lip is as stiff as a chunk of freeze-dried paddywhack.

During a recent walk along a country lane, a sliver of glass found its way into one of her paws. Not once did she stop and call attention to her plight; I only knew something was wrong when I noticed the rhythm of her walk change. She wasn’t limping as such, but I could see from her shoulder movement that she wasn’t putting full weight through one of her legs. I stopped her and checked the affected leg, but without my reading glasses I didn’t spot the glass; I just gave her paw a magic rub and monitored her as we continued on the walk. The rub seemed to have helped a bit, but she still wasn’t walking quite normally.

As we got close to home I saw a puddle of clean rainwater and tried encouraging her to walk through it, thinking that might help, but she was very reluctant. This time when I checked her paw I could see a little blood escaping from the wound and could feel the protruding glass. She’d have soldiered on without making a fuss, but of course I picked her up and carried her home, giving her little kisses as we went. Monkey got a bit jealous of the attention I was giving Daisy and tried to pull down my pants (its his way) but we got home just the same, and while I went for tweezers and my glasses Daisy somehow purged her paw of the foreign body all by herself. She’s little and she’s squeaky, but she’s also tough, just like her GoDog purple dinosaur and “sitting duck” toys!

And now for the ballet part of the post. I’ve been experimenting with the electronic shutter on my camera, allowing it to take a more concentrated burst of images during Monkey & Daisy’s play sessions; all those extra in-between frames have shown just how graceful and athletic they both are!

And this image shows why certain parts of our lawn look like a well-used racetrack:

Spring has got off to an unusually warm and sunny start this year, and the pups have been trying out all the sunbathing spots on the new deck.

It took us a few days to work out where best to place blankies and beds to make the Beagle sunworshipping as comfortable as possible, but until we started getting it right, Daisy was quite happy to improvise.

Yeah, Monkey is basically Daisy’s portable heated cushion.

I still need to put railings on the stairs up to the deck, but this keeps getting delayed as we work to convert the building site at the rear of the house back into a patio that we and the pups can chill out on. In the midst of all that, Susan’s very busy getting all our veg and flowers ready to go into the ground.

With all this work to do, there are times when we need to keep Daisy and Monkey occupied at the bottom of the garden, so we’ve fallen into the habit of giving them lots of treats, particularly longer-lasting ones such as chicken feet, goat ears and various other animal parts. Given that they’re Beagles, distracting them with food should be super easy, and in Daisy’s case it is, but Monkey often presents a problem, well.. two problems to be more accurate.

Firstly there’s his complete inability to catch things, a failing he acquired from his mentor The Bigglet. When a treat is thrown for him, he just lets it hit the floor, then while he’s trying to work out where it landed, Daisy speed-eats her treat and swoops in to claim his. This  can be mitigated by not throwing the treat but instead putting it directly in his mouth. If it’s in his mouth he can’t possibly lose it, right? Wrong, because he’s Monkey.

If the treat in question is one he hasn’t encountered before, he can’t just eat it; he has to check it carefully to ensure that it’s not some new attempt at Monkeycide, and as he puts it on the ground to study it, Daisy nicks it.  Conversely if the treat is one he knows well and loves, he’s so filled with the joy of getting it that he has to play with it before consumption. Wagging furiously, he throws it in the air and pounces on it,  throws it again and pounces, then throws it one more time and.. Daisy nicks it.

When this happens he looks round at us with a pathetic, bewildered expression on his face that says “Mum, Dad, it’s happened again! Help!”. Instead of getting on with what we wanted to do, one of us now has to go back into the kitchen to get a replacement, by which time Daisy has finished snacking and is either getting under our feet or making us feel guilty for not getting her a second serving too. We called our boy Monkey, and a Monkey he is, but he’s also a Doofus.

Some more recent shots…

When Daisy’s losing at chases, she still cheats by hiding under our garden seat and ambushing The Monkster!

That first Spring grass-cut took a bit longer than expected.

‘Cos when the mower’s out, it’s the perfect time for wrestling and chases.




It turns out that Spring is the ideal time for gardening Beagles to prune bamboo.

And whatever was in this pot, well it ain’t there any more. But Daisy did it, Dad, honest!

Little Miss Innocent. Well, the “little” part is true at least.