We had unexpectedly nice weather this morning, which made for a very nice walk in the park. Admittedly wellies were still required, but there was sun, blue sky and thankfully no midges.

Beanie got straight down to her usual antics with her chums Sophie and Kirby.

Yep, Beanie regularly wrestles with Grizzly bears :)

When Kirby wasn’t looking, Beanie grabbed her squeaky “Daily Growl” newspaper toy and ran off with it:

Needless to say there was much chasing and romping about, but then right out of the blue we saw a young male Beagle approaching. He ran straight over to Beanie and the gang as though he knew them. There was certainly something familiar about his face, but I couldn’t put a name to him – until that is his owner jogged into view and solved the mystery – it was Alfie from Beanie’s obedience class.

The last time we’d seen Alfie was at the Beagle Racing Fun Day. He’d still seemed small and very young back then, but here he was, nine months old and as big as Baxter. His dad was bravely attempting the Holy Grail of activities for the fit dog owner: running with your dog off-lead. I’ve tried this a couple of times with Beanie. While it works, it’s great – your dog can zoom ahead when he/she finds the human pace too pedestrian, or even stop for a sniff with other dogs before playing catch-up for a treat. But it can go wrong all too easily, especially with a Beagle – all it takes is a tempting pile of fox poo to roll in, another dog with an unguarded ball, or worst of all, a picnicker.

Alfie and his dad hung around with us for a while. This gave Beanie an opportunity for further chasing..

..and Alfie got a chance to observe our master wrestler at work. Although in this case, I don’t think the masterclass went quite as Beanie intended!

See Alfie? I’ve got him right where I want him..

After a while they headed off for another circuit of the park, and we were still there when they came round for the second time. Susan asked Alfie’s dad how the run had worked out, but unfortunately his dream of naughtiness-free jogging had turned sour. Maybe it is possible though, even with a Beagle. Earlier in the year we met a guy with a male Beagle who claimed to have no recall problems whatsoever, which he attributed to running with his dog off-lead from an early age. Hmm.. think I’d need to see it to believe it!

Anyway it was time to head home, which we did, albeit after a quick hot chocolate at the park cafe. On our way to the car, we ran into the long time Beagle owner who’s given us such interesting information on Beanie’s ancestry. She doesn’t have a Beagle these days, instead she has a Spaniel called Toby, but he seems keen to carry on some of the habits of his Beagle predecessors. He’s independent, only responds to commands when he wants, and can typically be found circling a tree, barking at the squirrels therein:

While Susan was talking to his owner, I headed down towards Toby to see what all the fuss was about. He was having a great time running round and round the tree, barking with such regularity you could use him as a metronome. I knelt to take a few photos of him, expecting my presence to disturb him, but he was oblivious. He just kept on with his perfectly timed, monotonous barking. It started to remind me of a psychological method of attack sometimes employed by the military to wear down the enemy – playing loud music over and over again.

Maybe I was right to make that association, because suddenly a squirrel darted down the tree trunk and made a near-suicidal dash across the park. Toby was instantly on the chase!

He came quite close to catching the little fella – he certainly had enough straight-line speed..

..but the squirrel was more agile, and made it to another tree before Toby could have him for lunch. Toby had a couple of goes at climbing the tree, then returned to his tried and tested methods: circling and barking. He was still there as we left the park…

Over recent months we’ve been looking into Beanie’s herritage to try and find out where she gets her lythe, athletic build and physical prowess from.  A lady that we know from the park had always said Beanie was a throwback to the English Pack Beagle, and that she looked just like her first Beagle who was the daughter of a pack Beagle.  During our research we discovered that this lady’s Beagle was in fact an ancestor of Beanie’s!

Well, finally we have a photograph of her. Her name is Cindy (aka Graffham Cinderella). Cindy was born in 1961.

 
Cindy (after having had a litter of puppies!) left, Beanie (aged 8.5 months) right – Beanie’s got bigger ears and a softer face, but the build is very similar.

Cindy was apparantly a speed demon and could run forever – just like Beanie! Cindy’s mum tells us that she remembers watching the Edinburgh Beagle pack hunting in the early sixties. She says Beanie would have fitted right in with them – although her big ears would have been no use as they’d have got tangled and damaged in the undergrowth. The big ears that we see on Beagles nowadays are apparently an aesthetic modification !

Now Beanie’s not a direct descendant of Cindy, but pretty close. This is going to be complicated to explain….

First here’s the names of all the bitches down Beanie’s mums side (mum, gran, great gran, etc), right back to Eton College Viper, who was a working Pack Beagle.

Newlin Zamantha (2007) (aka Beanie).
Newlin Kelsey (2001)
Newlin Yazz (1994)
Newlin Nonsense (1990)
Newlin Opium (1983)
Norcis Roxanne At Newlin (1980)
Norcis Hannah (1974)
Korwin Rachel (1972)
Korwin Laura (1969)
Sweet Selina (1965)
Pippa or Lairfad (?)
Rossut Midget
Rossut Fashion (1960)
Rossut Variant (1958)
Virtuoso
Veronesse
Eton College Viper (1951)
Eton College Vigilant (1944)
Eton College Lavish

Eton College Viper had a little boy Holbein and a little girl Veronesse (half brother and sister).  They were mated to produce Virtuoso (direct ancestor of Beanie).

Holbein was also mated with Sabina to produce Graffham Cinderella.

So Vertuoso (Beanie’s direct ancestor) and Graffham Cinderella (our friend from the parks dog) were half  sisters.

Now according to our friend from the park, Graffham Cinderella was very typical of the Beagles of that time. And I was told by the daughter of the people that bred Rossut Variant that she was very different from todays Beagles – more leggy and finer boned. So it’s probably reasonable to assume that Virtuoso and her daughter Rossut Variant (1958) looked similar to Cindy (and therefore similar to Beanie!).

Our friend from the park tells us that the Rossuts played a big part in changing the Beagle into the stockier, shorter legged, bigger eared dog that we see in this line today. They used stud dogs imported from America by Rozavel kennels. These were dogs were chunkier, shorter legged and more refined than the pack beagles. Whilst in this country Beagles were largely only bred for function (hunting) until the 50’s, in America they had been breeding for showing & aesthetic appeal for very many years. I wasn’t able to find photos of Rossut Variant, Fashion or Midget. However, I did find one of Midgets full brother Rossut Triumphant.

So perhaps we can guess that the Rossut’s changed the Beagles in Beanie’s mums line from something similar to this traditional hunting Beagle:

To this Champion Show Beagle:

In just a couple of generations and about four years!

Beanie has the best of both worlds – the physique of a functional English pack Beagle (which should serve her well in her racing and agility) and the soft, refined features of the American show Beagles.

Way back when we knew we were getting Beanie, we bought her a toy to play with in her last week or so at Newlin Beagles. This wasn’t purely indulgence – as we’d handled the toy before Benaie got it we hoped it would help familiarize her with our scent, and when she came to our home it would bring the comforting scent of her littermates with her. Now that Biggles is going to be joining us, we headed off to Pets at Home to do the same for him.

We settled on a rope ring with four textured balls on it – it looked to be fairly robust, and the different textures should make for an engrossing chewing experience. Unfortunately we had no idea just how engrossing.

Once back home, we handed the toy to Beanie to get her scent on it. It was an immediate hit, and got Beanie’s full attention.

The chewing quickly grew more intense..

.. and after taking a couple of photos I made a mental note to rescue the toy fairly soon, just in case it couldn’t stand up to a prolonged Beanie session. After all, not many things can. Unfortunately I left the toy in Beanie’s clutches just a little too long, and Susan found a trail of debris on the landing ten minutes later.

So one more visit to the pet shop was on the cards. This time we got a simpler, and surely more robust chew/tug toy:

Rhino – sounds just the thing for a tough little Beagle boy doesn’t it? Beanie’s jaws of death didn’t get hold of it this time – we just handled it a bit and sent it straight off to Biggles. But another toy caught Susan’s eye – a treat jar on a rope. This one would be solely for Beanie – it is her Birthday soon after all!

The bottom of the jar unscrews for loading, and it has lots of air holes to allow the smell of the treats to escape. The dog has his work cut out to get extract the treats though. He has to push the knotted rope down into the jar a little (otherwise the knot blocks the jar’s neck), and jiggle the treats down to towards the neck end by tilting the lower end up. I honestly didn’t think Beanie would be up to the task – that one brain cell of hers usually only comes up with a single strategy: brute force. Can’t open the baby gate into our office? Just chew your way through. Can’t open a jacket pocket to extract some week-old treat debris? Chew the jacket! You get the picture.

And yet, to my amazement, she’s become quite expert with this toy.

Perhaps even more amazing is the fact that it’s showing no sign of damage even after two days of full-on abuse.

I’m hoping that something else will survive Beanie’s attention. To help Biggles cope with our new laminate floor we’ve bought a set of black interlocking rubber mats – kind of like the ones you find in gyms – only way cheaper and therefore not as robust. So far Beanie hasn’t shown any signs of wanting to chew it, and she can run on it without any skidding, so if it lasts the week we’ll get a bit more to make some slip-free play areas for the two of them.