Classic symptoms of being a teenager include:

• spending most of the morning in bed
• low impulse control and a lack of frustration tolerance
• an insatiable appetite
• recoiling from signs of affection from parents
• defiance and boundary-testing

Going by that list Beanie has spent her whole life behaving like a teenager, and now at the grand old age of 13, she really is one. On the morning of her birthday I had to pull the covers off our bed to get her up, and then – just as I was about to get her into her into the van to go on her special walk – she decided that she absolutely had to go into the garden for an extended toilet and sniff session. When we finally got going I heard complaints about the bed in her travel crate, and when we parked up there were more complaints that I hadn’t opened up the van fast enough. Happily the walk itself did meet the standard required by our spoiled little madam; I took her and The Bigglet on a figure-of-eight loop round the paths at Ayr Gorge to make it more of an event, and on the journey home I was rewarded by contented snores and dream woofs.

Ayr Gorge is a relatively short drive away from our home, but after months of strictly local walks necessitated by the covid situation it must have felt like trip to an exotic foreign land for the pups. Brand new sniffs at every turn, lots of nooks and crannies to investigate, and scarcely anyone else in sight.

Intense napping sessions normally follow the post-walk meal, but there’s no time for napping when individual birthday cakes have to be speed-swallowed and presents must be opened.

Two seconds later and only the crumbs remained (not that they remained for long)

Beanie is hardly short of toys, but when I saw this soft log loaded with squeaky squirrels I knew it would be a hit.

Apparently many dogs enjoy picking the squirrels out of the log. At first Beanie barely noticed them, being much more intent on sticking her snout right down the central hole of the log for a power-sniff. It was only later that her attention turned to the squirrels, at which point she paraded them round the room like the overgrown pup that she is.

As tradition demands (and Beagle law requires under the “if one puppy gets” rule) , Biggles also got his own unbirthday present, although I’m not sure it was on his personal wish-list.

I guess that’s what little boys get when they think it’s fun to leave their poos all over the patio and the deck, or when they get into bed and position their bum-hole right under my nose before letting rip.

I’m only joking of course; he actually got a couple of new filled hooves and spent most of the day happily munching on them all over the house. That said, if the patio pooping and gas leaks continue, I reckon I can find somewhere to put that cork.

To finish, here’s a few more shots of the birthday girl with her latest indulgence:

Although Beanie has become much more open to cuddles as she’s aged, they’re still quite rare and valued all the more because of it. I can usually sneak in a quick hug when I’m fitting her harness for a beach run because she’s so distracted by the seaside sniffs. Similarly a game of tug presents opportunities for a pseudo-cuddle, but sometimes – if she’s in the mood – she lets me sidle up to her on all fours, rest my head on her neck and massage her ears. Those are the best Beanie cuddles by far; they have a gentle intimacy that is lacking from even the most indulgent head-end Bigglet snuggles. They are also however very, very difficult to set up; if my timing and body language is off even slightly, I can very easily end up making a woof or three.

In physics the law of thermodynamics states that energy cannot be created or destroyed, while in the Beanieverse a similar law dictates that a woof once made cannot be unmade, and will always find its way out of the Beagle in question. This is exactly what happened during my most recent attempt to set up the head-on-neck cuddle variant. I don’t know whether my transition from two legs to four limbs was too fast, or two slow, or predator-like in some way, but the second I started moving towards her she drew back into a play-bow and as she came out of it, I knew I’d made a woof. All the telltale signs were present – a tensing of the muscles, a directness in her gaze – in fact I even said to her “I can see a woof in there! You may not know it’s there, but I can see it!”. My commentary distracted her for a second and she tilted her head as though trying to make sense of it, but then out came the woof, and as is so often the case with a woof, it had a lot of woof siblings. That day’s cuddle attempt was over!

Of course dogs aren’t the only ones to have their own weird set of rules. Here in the UK there seems to be one concerning freshly dug holes; it requires three workmen (preferably council workers) to stand round the new hole and gaze into it approvingly for far longer than would seem practical. If you’re not familiar with this rule, take note the next time you’re stuck in a roadworks queue. If there’s hole, I can almost guarantee you’ll see the three-man ceremony. You may observe the participants making short verbal exchanges during this process. I’ve often wondered what they’re saying to each other. Are they simply stating the obvious, as in “Yep, that’s a hole alright”, or are they offering thanks to some ancient god of roadworks? Maybe the sight of the hole has inspired them to a deep philosophical discussion on the meaning of life? Regardless, without this 3-man hole viewing, the digging isn’t truly finished. As it happens I’ve been digging holes myself as part of our project to extend the fence by our house, and in the absence of two human co-workers I’ve had to rely on Beanie and Biggles to make up the numbers for my own hole completion ceremony.

Beanie showed no interest in the results of all my graft, but Biggles was much more appreciative; he is after all the only one of us who has regularly worked on his own digging projects on mountain tops and on our local beach. If anyone knows what a good hole should look like, it’s him. After a thorough inspection in which he nearly fell in, Biggles declared my post-holes complete. He also slurped some of the muddy water at the bottom of one of them, and munched on some of the extracted muck that didn’t quite make into the wheelbarrow. That’s a level of thoroughness and enthusiasm rarely displayed by human roadworks crews, and maybe something they should look to add to their procedures.

It has to be said that The Bigglet brings the same level of thoroughness to most of the things he does, including the nicking of the cherry tomatoes we’ve grown. While Beanie works like a sniper, hunting down and grabbing only the tomatoes that are close to ripeness, he systematically gobbles down anything that’s tomato-shaped regardless of size or color.

Beanie stands in a plant pot to reach the more advanced tomatoes…

whereas Biggles is much less discerning…

but you can’t say he’s not thorough!

Fortunately the species of cherry tomato we’d grown here wasn’t particularly tasty so Biggles’ premature harvesting doesn’t represent a loss, but when we try different tomatoes next year I think we may have to worry about more than greenfly and frost damage!