When Poppy first came to live with us she wanted to be friends with everyone and everything, even cats. She actually had a cheek to cheek cuddle with the first cat she met when she was allowed out for walks. The only things she couldn’t bring herself to trust were puddles outside; puddles on the floor in the house were OK, understandably so given that most of those were made by Poppy herself.

Sadly recent events have taught Poppy not to be so trusting. Bees are now right up there with puddles, and I’m pretty sure I’ve earned a place on her blacklist too.

One morning as Poppy was completing her morning rounds of the garden and I was waiting at the kitchen door to let her in, I saw her look sharply to one side, then recoil in fear, darting into a corner of the patio. Shortly thereafter she seemed to be choking, and losing control of her legs. We ran out and I picked her up, and as I held her I became genuinely afraid that she was about to asphyxiate right there in my arms. Out of desperation and without proper thought, I did the same thing I’d done to help Beanie in the past when she had choking incident with a rawhide chew: I stuck my fingers down Poppy’s throat to feel for any obstruction and hopefully pull it out. I should point out that this is is not all the recommended course of action when a dog starts choking; there’s a doggy version of the Heimlich manoeuver which is a much better and safer option. Regardless, my intervention did ease her breathing but her legs were still giving way when she tried to stand. This improved over the next minute or so, and then for a brief period she became quite aggressive, growling and howling at me and warning me off. In the time it took Susan to call the vet and get an emergency appointment, Poppy seemed to have returned to normal, but of course we took her for a checkup anyway.

“Bee sting.” That was the vet’s immediate response when we relayed what we’d observed, and it seemed to explain most things: the sharp look to one side, the fearful reaction and the shock. It might even go some way to explaining the growling and wild arrooing, though there could also be another factor at play for that one. I mean, imagine you’d come really close to being run over by a bus. Still trembling from the adrenaline rush and shock of the near miss, you tell your story to a bystander and they respond by saying “Blimey, I’d better stick my fingers down your throat then”.

Regardless, this brush with death has caused Poppy to think seriously about having puppies to continue her line. Procreation is turning out to be quite tricky though. She’s been humping the heck out of Monkey..

..and she’s even tried planting herself like a seed in a pot full of compost, but as yet no pups have materialised. Is it possible she’s doing something wrong?

It’s all terribly confusing and exhausting.

Loudoun Hill isn’t exactly a mountain but it’s a big enough climb for a couple of elderly Beaglets, and it’s certainly the biggest hill I could handle while holding four leads.

As is often the case, getting hounds up a hill is the easy part; they’re all eager to climb and see what’s at the top, although time should always be allowed for mid-ascent sniffage and sheep poo sampling.

If there are going to be problems then they’ll mostly occur on the way back down, and in this case I discovered just how much pulling power four Beagles cam exert, even when two of them are golden oldies and often get confused. Despite that I managed to stay on my feet and off my arse for the entire walk.

By the time we got home we had four very contented and sleepy little furries.

Poppy is without doubt our most – genuinely – affectionate Beagle. I say “genuinely” because Beanie would otherwise own the title if we could ignore the fact that her interactions always seem to coincide with us spilling dinner or dropping crumbs on ourselves. What’s more, cuddles with Beanie are pretty much one-way only, in that she’ll tolerate hugs and kisses just so long as she can keep licking up the food debris. As I’ve noted previously, Beanie is the consummate “courtesy Beagle“.

Poppy on the other hand is all about the cuddle itself. At seemingly random times during the day she’ll approach, slowly walk up our legs with her front paws and hang out for an extended cheek-to-cheek snuggle. If she gets onto a lap, she’ll often orient herself so that she can gaze right into our eyes. I’ve come to call these gentle interactions “Poppy moments”.

I have found however that when a Poppy moment comes to an end, it’s best to hold one’s breath and move to alternate location, preferably at least three metres away. Why? Well it’s because Poppy generally ends one of her moments because she’s just dropped one of the most noxious farts known to man or beast, and she doesn’t want her little black sniffer to experience it. I’m guessing she’s thinking “Oooh that’s gonna be a bad one – sorry Dad, time to go!”

Seriously, her bottom burps are foul in the extreme; it doesn’t seem possible that such a small, sweet looking thing could produce such a smell. Worse still, it’s not even just a smell – you can almost feel the coarse, gritty airborne faecal particles entering your lungs as you unwittingly breath them in. I’ve often noticed that if Monkey joins in a Poppy moment, he’ll ram his snout into my armpit, or push his head through between my crossed legs, which I would generally characterise as unwise knowing my armpits as a I do. Once you factor in the Poppy bombs it all makes sense: even the whiff of my sweat armpits is preferably to a Poppy arse-ripper.

I suspect readers who are doggy nutrition evangelists may now be thinking “Ahh, that’s because you’re not feeding Poppy the right dog food” and if so, well, you have a point, but things are not quite as you might think. I’m confident that changing the food I’m intentionally giving to Poppy will not make any difference to her flatulence, because the cause of it isn’t something I’m giving her or not giving her. Nope, the cause is something she’s nicking and nibbling like there’s no tomorrow. It’s these little critters we’ve planted in the garden:

Jerusalem Artichokes, also known as “sun-chokes” or in less polite company “fartichokes” actually grow really well here in Scotland. I know this because we’ve probably got around fifty of them in our rear garden after trying just a few last year. Or at least we probably had around fifty of them; that number must have dropped considerably because Poppy has been digging them up and munching on them for some time now. At first I put the soil disturbance and occasional artichoke debris down to the action of foxes or moles or other uninvited visitors, but one morning I actually spotted Poppy liberating one from its earthy tomb.

As the name “fartichoke” suggests, these tubers have a reputation for causing wind if consumed excessively or by one whose gut has yet to adapt to their unique qualities. I suspect Poppy ticks both of those boxes. Thing is we still want to grow them because they take no effort and taste great, and in any case they proliferate at such a rate that getting rid of them would be difficult. They’re now entering their growing season again so maybe Poppy will leave them alone and the air in our house will clear, at least for a few months…

Oh boy am I thankful that Monkey hasn’t acquired the fartichoke habit! With the amount he can eat in a day and the incredible amount of gas released, his bum would likely explode.