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.

We spend a small yet significant part of each day herding Beanie & Biggles out of our utility room, because that’s where all the kibble and treats are stored and they both know it. It’s common for opportunist Beaglets to make an unsanctioned excursion into that room whenever they’ve been let in from the garden, and once a Beagle is in that room, it’s difficult to get them out; it’s a cramped little space and the clothes airer usually impedes a direct scoop and eject maneuver. All that said, this morning we intentionally summoned the Beaglets in there for an emergency clean-up operation.

Stressed-out and short on sleep after our wonderful government’s latest covid roller-coaster ride, I was having one of those mornings where I’m particularly accident prone, or as I choose to view it, “inanimate objects are out to get me”. I needed access to a cupboard, so I shoved the dirty laundry bag out of the way. This in turn knocked over the large and recently filled kibble container, spilling a substantial amount of Chicken and Rice “Burns Alert” all over the floor, not to mention under the fridge and washing machine. I quickly recited the first page of the book of 4-letter expletives, whereupon Susan joined me to help scoop up the spilled kibble. After scarcely a minute of effort we both ran out of patience and decided to call in the professional cleanup crew.

Biggles was the first to arrive. If I were to liken him to a vacuum cleaner attachment, he’d be the big, broad floor sweeping tool. He’s great at picking up a big pile of debris in the middle of the floor, but he’s not so good at cleaning right into the corners and doesn’t cope too well with things that have rolled under heavy objects. Just as he was finishing up the bits that he could handle well, his little wiggly-bottomed colleague appeared.

To continue the vacuum cleaner metaphor, I’d say Beanie is most definitely the crevice tool, sucking up all the little stray bits that the big sweeper misses. She got straight to work and after less than 60 seconds of diligent sniffing and nibbling I was ready to thank her for a job well done. She however was not ready to call time on the cleanup operation; her nose was insisting that some kibble was still hiding under the washing machine. Her nose is never wrong. Not ever.

Reluctantly I grabbed a long handled spatula, got down on the floor and began digging about in the dark recesses under the washer. I flicked out some kibble and Beanie quickly vacuumed it up, but still her nose would not sign off on the job. The spatula wasn’t connecting with anything now, so I prised off an adjoining kickboard, revealing one and one half nuggets of Burns’ best. Now, finally, Beanie was prepared to declare the operation complete, but of course I still had to swear and curse my way though reattachment of the kickboard. It was a bit like the bad old days when I’d take the car into Kwik-fit for a specific fix, then spend the next day sorting out the new problems the “professionals” had generated. Still, if Beanie’s nose couldn’t detect any remaining kibble then neither would that of a passing rodent, so calling in the furry professionals had been worthwhile even if not particularly labor-saving.

We’re now set for the weirdest Christmas we’ve yet experienced, and I’m not the least bit confident things will be any better this time next year. What’s that supposedly Chinese curse? “May you live in interesting times” ? Yep, things certainly are”interesting”, and not for the first time I find myself wishing I was Beagle.

Eat, poop, possibly eat poop, have fun and when you’re pooped yourself, slip into a deep untroubled sleep. They’re lucky little pups to have such stable, happy lives, and we’re just as lucky to have them through all of this.

Every so often Beanie and Biggles do things that challenge my ideas about how smart (or dumb) they really are. Just recently they’ve nudged me in the “they’re smarter than  I thought” direction, because they’ve been misuing established signals to get their wicked little ways.

Like most Beagle girls, Beanie appreciates having plenty of room to herself in the humie bed on a morning. In the past she’s been able to secure this space by digging her claws into inconveniently-placed humie body parts, but lately the humies have shown an increased tolerance for Beagle acupressure. As a workaround she’s switched tactics and is now using (abusing) the long established pitter-patter signal to get the personal space she craves. Only people who have hard floor surfaces will likely know what I mean when I refer to “pitter-patter” – it’s the sound made when a little Beagle does the potty dance on laminate flooring to indicate a pressing need for the outside loo. It sounds quiet and subtle, but in practice those nails alternately tapping on wood is impossible to ignore; like a dripping tap it breaks through sleep, conversation, and even the deepest levels of concentration. More to the point, it’s enough to make a humie get out of bed, turn off the alarm and open the door to the garden. While this is happening, the smart Beagle can use her superior agility and speed to run round the humie, sprint back to the bedroom and claim a disproportionately large chunk of bed real-estate. To me, this is the kind of problem-solving I’ve had to employ far too often during my work as a software engineer; when Microsoft doesn’t give you the tools you need to accomplish a task directly, you find ways to use/abuse the tools you do have to get the desired effect.

Similarly Biggles has also adapted his “I need the loo” signals to get other things. He has two signalling methods, the first and most common being pawing of the metal baby gate at the entrance to the kitchen. In recent weeks he’s been using the paw-the-gate signal not for loo visits, but to draw attention to his latest sock acquisitions. In Biggles’ world, socks are the only hard currency; they can be exchanged for goods and services (OK mainly goods – specifically biccies) and when scampering into the living room with a sock flapping in your gob doesn’t get the desired result, well, you have to find another way. And so he has.

The second signal is a woof. I know what you’re thinking – there’s nothing special here; all dogs will woof to get something – but I’m talking about a very particular woof. It’s a single vocalization – a word not a phrase – and has a certain urgency in its delivery that leaves you in no doubt about the meaning: “Get me to a patch of grass now unless you like it messy and wet!”. I first heard it on a long car journey and trust me, no dog-to-English translation was necessary. Until recently it had been reserved solely for emergency pee situations, but now it’s being used get emergency access to the warm humie bed. The woof is issued, the crate opens, and while I open the way to the back door, he leaps into bed for a snuggle. It’s a bit naughty, but hey, it works.