It’s the Christmas Party season, and that goes for dogs as well as humans. On Wednesday night the Glasgow Dog Training Club held its party for puppies and beginners, so it was going to be a big night for “Big Les” (as Biggles is now known in the park!) and a quiet night in for Beanie.

We knew there’d be a fancy dress competition and with a name like Biggles, there was only ever one choice of outfit for our little boy!

We got a tip-off about the flying jacket from Kirby’s Mum (available in various sizes from PetPlanet), and we already had the cap from an old toy. He seemed to like the jacket, but I think the cap cramped his style a bit.

Still he didn’t mind it so much when he won third place and a big bag of Puppy Markies in the fancy dress, despite some stiff competition from his Beagle chum Tara.

She’s even got a poo bag stashed in her pocket – now that’s thinking ahead!

After the fancy dress was over it was time for games! Perennial favorite “pass the parcel” put in an appearance, except in this case every layer of wrapping had a tasty treat in it so nearly every dog came away with something. The lucky winner – Tara – got a whole box full of gravy bones. I think Biggles was a little jealous..

but he needn’t have been, because Musical Chairs Sits was up next, and he was about to win some more treats of his own.

He flew through the first few rounds of Musical Sits with ease, which was not surprising. His concentration seems to be better than Beanie’s was at the same age, and for that reason he’s already made a big impression in the puppy class even though he’s only been going a few weeks. If you’ve got a treat in your hand, you’ve got his full attention!

As more players were eliminated, the sits were replaced by downs, but still our little boy was “in the zone”. He almost went cross-eyed trying to keep the treat in focus.

When only three pups were left one more round was held to decide the winner, but this time a sit-down-sit-stand-down-stand had to be performed. I have to admit I doubted that Biggles could pull it off, but he did, and finished first to claim his second prize of the night. What a clever boy!

He didn’t fare so well in the next event though – party tricks. We haven’t got round to teaching tricks to either Beanie or Biggles as yet. We did buy a book containing 101 tricks, but so far the only time it’s seen use was when Beanie ate the front cover. Maybe if she’d eaten up to page fifty she’d have a decent repertoire. As it was, the competition was won by solid performances of old classics such as rollover and give-a-paw:

Happily Biggles still got a little bag of treats for being a good sport!

The true highlight of the evening though was a visit from Santa Claus. I guess he’s going to be so busy dishing out presents for the kids on Christmas Eve that he had to schedule pets in a couple of weeks earlier.

Biggles wasn’t fazed by the bright red outfit or big bushy beard in the slightest. He marched confidently up to Santa and politely took his present – a soft, squeaky dinosaur.

The evening ended with a big raffle draw with some super prizes:

The very next day, it was Beanie’s turn to party. We’d got her a Santa costume for the fancy dress, and it seemed a little unimaginative compared to some of the others:

Tess wore a superb Snow Man outfit..

..although it was kind of let down by the pants

Nevertheless, Beanie dialled up her cuteness enough to get third place and bag of tasty Burns food.

She came very close to winning the obedience competition too. She was up against a number of dogs from the Advanced class, but she gave Susan her full attention..

..and almost made it through to the final round. In fact it was human error that scuppered her chances. The remaining dogs were set the challenge of staying in a down while the handlers ran back to their seats and performed a recall. With all the running going on around her Beanie almost broke out of her down, but Susan repeated the down command from across the room and Beanie went straight back into the down position. Unfortunately, neither of us had understood that the recall was to be performed as soon as the handler was seated. Little Beanie obediently stayed put while the other dogs ran back to their owners, and when Susan realized our mistake and called Beanie she leaped to her feet and sprinted across the floor..

..but even she wasn’t quite fast enough catch the other dogs. She was out, but she’d had a good time and plenty of treats and that’s what counts.

Unfortunately the next event posed the ultimate challenge for our little girl. A red disk was placed in the middle of the floor with a tasty piece of sausage on it. Handlers had to recall their dogs across the sausage without any illicit nibblings. What a nightmare! Asking a Beagle to run over a sausage without eating it is like asking Superman to cross a room filled with green Kryptonite.

Must.. not.. eat.. forbidden sausage!

She really did her best, but a sausage is a sausage, and Beagle’s gotta do what a Beagle’s gotta do.

The shutter on my camera was set to 1/160 of a second for that shot, and 1/160 of a second later the sausage was in Beanie’s stomach. Of course, looking at it from a Beagle’s point of view, Beanie was the one with the brains. After all, a sausage in the tummy is worth ten in the fridge.

Before long Santa stopped by for another visit, and I noted that club official George had exited the room mere moments before Santa’s arrival. The same thing had happened the previous night. Just coincidence?

Is this Santa’s secret identity?

Regardless, the appearance of Santa provoked an entirely different reaction from the older dogs in the intermediate and advanced classes versus the pups from the previous evening. There was a lot of barking, and as the dogs were brought up to receive their presents many of them – including Beanie – were a little unsure about Mr. Claus. A piece of sausage and a nice toy quickly changed that of course.

The initial reaction to Santa was ample proof that all those books that stress the importance of the “socialization window” early in a pup’s life have got it right. Having said that, if you get your pup outside of the festive season you might feel a bit silly donning the red coat and white beard just to head off any Santaphobia.

As before, the evening ended with a raffle draw and buffet. The club staff should be really proud of themselves – both evenings were superb fun for dogs and owners alike :)

See more pictures from the Glasgow Dog Training Club Christmas Parties on their blog. You’ll find many more pictures from those two fantastic evenings at the links below:

Photos from Puppies and Beginners Party

Photos from Intermediate and Advanced Party

There wasn’t much frost in evidence today, but it was still bitterly cold and rather dull. Fortunately several things happened to brighten things up.

The first was the re-appearance of Beanie’s treat bag. Despite spending several days in Zak’s gut it emerged fully intact and cleaned up well, so Zak won’t be comparing abdominal scars with Beanie any time soon.

Then we bumped into some new Beagle visitors to the park. The first was Bailey, a fit tricolor male who seemed to get on well with little Biggles. The second was another male called Captain Jack, but more on him later.

Bailey’s owners were a little scared about letting him off lead, but everyone assured them that it would be OK in the “puppy field”. So they let him off, and although he did explore the field quite extensively, he didn’t actually leave it. I wasn’t the least bit surprised. Beanie is prone to naughtiness and her recall is unreliable, but she’s never gone seriously AWOL from the field. Of course, confidence like that is a temptation that fate can rarely resist. But I’m getting ahead of myself – I haven’t spoken of the “creature” yet.

Here was the first sighting, as he emerged from his natural habitat…

His grotesque appearance sent local villagers fleeing in panic…

But then a brave warrior appeared who was not afraid to do battle with this fearsome beast.

Brave, brave Sir Robbie!

They fought long and hard..

..and our brave hero, Sir Robbie of Rouken Glen, sustained a terrible splattering before peace was finally restored.

Thanks to Sir Robbie’s brave sacrifice nearly everyone else remained relatively mud free. I say “nearly everyone” because the silly boy still managed to knock another dog owner over, but hey, you can’t fight tradition.

It was shortly after this that I received payback for my earlier confidence in the power of the puppy field to keep Beagles from wandering. Beanie and Biggles had spent a few minutes hanging around in a corner of the field where some bird nests had been blown into the long grass. I could only see their tails because of the grass, but the pattern of movement suggested a harmless sniffing session. I took my eyes off them for maybe 20 seconds, and when I looked back, they were gone.

I went to their last known location and called Beanie. No response. Then I called Biggles. He’s going through that blissful early stage where his recall is very reliable. I knew if I could get him to come running back, the chances were that Beanie would follow. This time however Biggles didn’t appear and I had to decide between holding position – which is the advice often given when a Beagle wanders off – and going after them. After umming and awing for a minute I chose the latter – it was pretty obvious they’d gone into the woods at the edge of the field.

After a few yards I ran into someone who’d seen them, and she set me on the right path. Thirty seconds later I’d got them both back on lead and the panic was over. It looked like they’d been lured away by the sound of children, and since they had each other for back up, I guess they felt it was OK to leave me. Needless to say they’ll both be getting some intensive recall-reinforcing training this week: hide-and-seek, Beagle ping-pong and so on. Complacency and Beagles is not a good combination!

As we headed back out of the woods I ran into the other “new” Beagle at the park – Captain Jack. We had the usual conversation about names, ages, breeders and so on, and then his owners asked me if it was “easier with two”. I had to laugh, given the nerve jangling experience I’d just had. “It’s better with two” I replied, “but it isn’t easier!”

On the way back to the car yesterday we bumped into yet another Beagle – 6 month old Oscar. His owner plans to bring him to the puppy field next Saturday. On a good day I think we might now have as many as 20 Beagles on ‘Beagle Hill’. That would be a sight to see!

Looks idyllic doesn’t it? The sun bursts through the clouds to warm a frost-bitten landscape as an intrepid dog walker heads across the bridge with her two faithful Beagles at her side…

Bollocks!

The reality is that Beanie decided to harass a family on the other side of the field who’d got a shopping bag full of sweet drinks, sweets and other tasty, smelly things. It’s not the first time this has happened, and direct physical intervention is always required. In other words, one of us has to go after her and drag her away from the edibles. Susan volunteered for the retrieval mission, and Biggles decided he go along for the ride. At least the two munchkins were mercifully and unexpectedly well behaved on the return journey, and by way of reward they had a brilliant play time with other doggy pals.

First there was Sam who was very, very fast and well up for a good chase with Beanie.

Then a couple of Pointers turned up. One was white with tan markings which gave her an almost Beagle-like appearance from the neck up. She was great fun..

but her black and white colleague was a huge hit with everyone!

Great for chases..

..yet very gentle and indulgent with our naughty little boy.

Come to think of it, Biggles made a lot of new friends during that park session..

..and he got to watch a very long stick fight between Robbie and Baxter. Robbie has recently gained a black collar in the ancient martial art of Retriever-Do, so it’s hardly surprising that he won this exchange.

But whatever the breed, Saturday was a great day to be a dog!