My cheeky little boy has had a week to remember. At the very start of it, movie night returned and both he and Beanie got a fresh filled hoof each to keep them occupied during the film. They hadn’t had hooves in a while so there was much wagging, rapidly followed by even more licking, slurping and chewing. It’s not uncommon for Biggles to end up with Beanie’s hoof on the following day – when his sister has concluded that the chewing effort required to get the remaining tasty bits just isn’t worth it – but this night my boy wasn’t prepared to wait. The instant Beanie left her hoof to check for unclaimed crumbs on the rug, he swooped in and knicked it. Under normal circumstances this would result in an immediate telling-off from the Beanster, or she might just complain to me and get me to put things to rights, but this time he got away with it. Things are always worth more to Biggles when he’s stolen rather than received them, and this was particularly evident with his extra hoof. He chewed it all that evening and all the next day, sometimes falling asleep mid-chew as fatigue set in.

The hoof-fest was great, but a day later he scored extra naughty points by breaking a treasured bottle of our first attempt at home-brewed wine, spilling that wine all over the kitchen floor. To be fair it wasn’t a deliberate act of destruction; it was more the result of a critical misunderstanding of how the world works. He’d just been let into the kitchen on his way to the outside loo, but he wanted to do a quick flyby of the worktops to see if there was anything worth getting. Susan was onto him immediately – trying to herd him to the door – so he gave her the run-around by diving under the kitchen table. He’d probably intended to emerge on the other side, squeezing between the wine rack and one of the chairs to gain freedom, but this is where the critical misunderstanding came in; you see Biggles thinks that if his head fits through a gap, then so will his big white bottom. This is sadly not the case. His bum nudged the bottle enough to make it fall out of the rack and smash on the floor. This alone would have been a good result for any Beagle boy, but Biggles wasn’t finished; in the ensuing commotion caused by the flood of red wine he snouted open the bin and made off with a used tin of tuna.

His biggest score came towards the end of the week when my latest order from the pet shop arrived. I’d got a couple of tubes of doggy toothpaste, toothbrushes and three bags of pressed fish cubes (the treat I give the woofers after a good brushing session). Susan took in the package, checked its contents and then – distracted by something else – left the opened package on the sofa. A little later when both us returned, the rug was covered in chewing debris and Biggles was merrily finishing off one of the bags of fish cubes. I was about to take both pups to the beach for a run, but looking at Biggles’ swollen undercarriage I realized that running was out of the question for him; in fact the only thing he managed to do for the rest of the day was sleep while his gut struggled with the enormous processing job.

Processing…

Still processing…

Neither of us could tell whether he was deliriously happy with his extra full tummy, or whether he’d got a bad case of “Christmas pud syndrome”, but I noted that he chose to sleep fully stretched out; there were no curled up power-naps until after a particularly long loo visit. Mercifully there were no emergency toilet trips during the night, but the next day I went out to the garden to see how much of a cleanup operation was required and returned with four full poo bags. Four, and clearly all his work! Still my boy wasn’t done; on our walk it was “eyes down for a full house” as we crossed the first road. His virtual pants were dropped again as we walked by someone’s drive, and again when I tried to get him out of the way of a cyclist.

Even if this week finished with a epic tummy ache, I’ve a feeling that it will go down in Biggles’ memory as a particularly good one.

We’re well into 2021 and so far it’s even worse than 2020, which is no small accomplishment, and nothing to celebrate.

Dogs are supposed to love routine, so the endless repeating pattern of life in lockdown should be great for our two, and in some ways it is; lots of snuggly lie-ins in the big bed, humie servants constantly available to cater to every whim, and the certainty that tomorrow will be just the same. The downside is that dogs are also really good at sensing the moods of their humies, and there’s no doubt that Beanie and Biggles are picking up on the escalating tension, frustration and worry that this ongoing situation is creating.

Predictably Beanie has been the most affected. She’s become Velcro Beagle, constantly following us round the house and needing frequent reassurance that everything is OK, but even happy-go-lucky Biggles is aware that something is going on. He’s been hoarding extra socks to use as tender if and when the apocalypse strikes, and is incapable of sleeping unless his big white bum is pressed tightly against one of us.

The other night I went into our “posh” lounge alone to chill out in front of an old, familiar movie – David Lynch’s Dune – but it wasn’t long before I heard scratches at the door. I ended up sitting right in the middle of the sofa – on the gap between the seat cushions –  with a fully expanded Beaglet on either side. Satisfied that I couldn’t sneak away again without them feeling it, Beanie and Biggles both relaxed and nodded off. When Kyle Maclachlan proclaimed “The sleeper has awakened!!” I could barely hear him over the stereo snoring.

Movie intermission, Beagle-style. And don’t think you can go wandering off and leave us alone in here Dad!

I’m very aware that we’ve got it way easier than so many others. While some people aren’t even allowed out of their houses to exercise their dogs, we’re able to go for walks in our beautiful local countryside.

But a guilded cage is still a cage, and outside that cage the world is being turned on its head. Keep collecting those socks Biggles! We may need them before all this is done!

It’s been a funny old Christmas and New Year, and not just because of the virus and the continuing lockdown, but also because we’ve spent most of the festive season redecorating our bathroom and bedroom. Working on the bathroom wasn’t much of a disruption to regular life – other than the ever present danger of Beagles gaining access and turning into furry paint-rollers – but the bedroom re-do meant that both humans and Beagles had to move their beds into our big lounge. This was problematic because the Beagle bedtime routine has become so very well ingrained: first you get your teeth brushed, then you get sent out for “final wees”, then a humie breaks a big dental chew in half, shouts “Crates!” and you sprint hell-for-leather into the bedroom, dive into your crate and get a chew.

Everything went well on the first night of our relocated sleeping arrangements until we got to the “Crates!” bit. I was standing just inside the lounge, pointing clearly at the two blankie-covered crates by the head of our inflatable camping bed when I made the announcement, but still Beanie and Biggles raced each other to the bedroom door. I’d closed the bedroom, so I figured all I had to do was stay put, wait for the frantic door scratching and barging to subside, then call them to me using the well worn instruction “Get in here you daft buggers!”

I waited, and waited some more, but no furry people appeared. Come to think of it I couldn’t hear any activity at all, so I had to go and investigate. I found the bedroom open (not the first time Biggles’ frenzied boinging has opened doors), with two very anxious and confused Beagles sitting on the bit of carpet that was formerly home to their beds. They saw me, which didn’t really affect anything, but then they saw the dental chews in my hand, and suddenly I had their attention. The walk back to the lounge was a bit stumbly because excited Beagles were bumping into each other, into my legs and into the walls, and generally getting underfoot, but when we got there the penny dropped – their crates were in here! They both charged straight into the nearest crate, which happened to belong to Beanie.

“No, Biggles, you need to go into your own crate!”

Biggles popped out briefly, realized that he wasn’t in a crate (which is a legal prerequisite for the bedtime chew), panicked and ran right back in, whereupon Beanie scrambled out and into Biggles’ crate.

“No that’s wrong, you need to swap!”

This time they both crammed into Biggles’ crate.

“Try again!”

Both back in Beanie’s crate. I’ll cut this short by saying that it took a substantial number of iterations before they were both in their own beds, and it was with some relief that I locked the crate doors and handed out the chews. Things weren’t any better the next night, but on night three they started to get the hang of it, just before we all moved right back into the bedroom, naturally.

In between all the decorating and bed confusion we did manage to get in a few early walks to take advantage of the clear, frosty mornings we’ve been having:

And of course at some point it stopped being 2020 and became 2021, though nobody in our house really noticed exactly when that happened. Will 2021 end up being a better year than it’s predecessor? I do hope so, because the bar has been set pretty low.