I’ve always taken pride in brushing the pups’ teeth regularly; in past years I’ve even been complimented by the vet for keeping up with their dental hygiene. Well, you know what they say about pride, although sadly the fall which followed my pride happened to Beanie rather than me. I can’t remember the exact circumstances of the fall (it could have been a slip as she dived off one of the office chairs, or a misstep as she sprinted up the stairs to the deck) but I do remember checking to see if she was alright. It appeared she was – she seemed to brush it off immediately – but in reality it must have knocked out two of her lower front teeth, and though this happened much earlier in the year, I only found out about the missing teeth last week. Worse still, I probably wouldn’t know about them even now if Susan hadn’t spotted the tooth-free gap while rescuing a stolen vegetable plant.

I’ve since discovered that in addition to the tooth loss, the rest of her front teeth aren’t looking as clean as they should. Admittedly there tends to be quite a lot of wriggling during the tooth-brushing process so much of it has to be done by feel rather than by sight, but it’s obvious I need to put more effort into cleaning and periodically eyeballing the front teeth as well as the canines and molars. To mark the start of my new, more conscientious doggy dental care routine I’ve switched to a better toothpaste, got a fresh brush and bought a couple of pots of Plaque-off.

While all of this will help both Beanie and Biggles hold on to their gnashers going forward, I get the feeling Beanie would have preferred something tastier and more immediately rewarding as compensation for her  mishap. She swallowed all her baby teeth as a little pup instead of leaving them under her pillow, so she’s certainly overdue for a visit from the tooth fairy.

Biggles’s life has had its ups and downs recently also. He’s always shown a liking for camping chairs, so recently Susan parked one right by my desk and lined it with our furriest tartan blankie. He needed no invitation to get onto it, and over the next few days it became his favorite hangout.

To be honest I loved having it there too. Biggles just looked so right in it, like it was his own tailor-made Beagle hammock. Unfortunately that chair also put its furry occupant in an ideal position for nicking things from my desk. For some days Biggles either didn’t realize it had this extra feature, or at least didn’t take advantage of it, but then one afternoon, when I was battling a really frustrating bug in my Android app, he went through one of his “I’ve got to get stuff!” phases. He became obsessed with some important papers on the corner of my desk, and made several attempts to nab them. Each time I told him firmly “No!” but when he’s in one his moods, the word “No” comes through as “keep trying different approaches”.

He never got the papers but every snatch attempt inflicted collateral damage, whether it was my phone crashing to the floor, or various usb devices getting ripped from their sockets, or just my concentration getting nuked yet again. Eventually I gave him an ultimatum: “Right! One more naughty nicking attempt and I’m going to confiscate your chair!”

Of course that one more attempt did happen, so I carried through on my threat, folding up his chair and carrying it to another room. Even as I was taking the chair away, an alarm bell sounded in my head. Had I remembered to push my own chair in under the desk before I picked up his Lordship’s luxury hammock? I got my answer even before I made it back to my desk, because Biggles passed me carrying my favorite hot chocolate mug in his mouth as he trotted purposefully to his place for checking out new acquisitions. Only recently I’d re-watched The Untouchables and one of Sean Connery’s best lines immediately popped into my head:

“You wanna get Capone? Here’s how you get him. He pulls a knife, you pull a gun. He sends one of yours to the hospital, you send one of his to the morgue. He takes your favorite camping chair, you take his favorite hot chocolate mug!”

Once he’d finished purging the chocolate dregs from my mug, Biggles went into a big sulk over the continued absence of his chair. I fixed my coding bug and lasted nearly 24 hours before I caved and restored his special seating arrangements. To date there haven’t been any more nicking attempts; I get to keep my papers and my mug on my desk, and he gets to keep his big furry bum on his tartan-lined hammock. I think we’ve reached an understanding.

Now if only I could flush the guilt I still feel over being unaware of Beanie’s tooth mishap…

This innocent looking little boy has become quite a handful over the last couple of weeks. He’s always been prone to having the odd “I’ve got to get something” moment, where he prowls the house looking for something to nab, but currently we can count on him going into klepto mode several times a day. Empty yoghurt pots and plastic milk containers have now joined socks as his most prized items, which is problematic as we’re using them extensively as temporary homes for Susan’s ongoing vegetable and fruit-growing project.

She takes great care to purge any trace of food from the containers, hand-washing them first and following that with a round in the dishwasher, but still Biggles finds them highly desirable. His raids start off with uncharacteristic stealth; he sneaks into Susan’s office when she’s occupied and quietly browses her store of clean pots, then mayhem ensues as he brute-forces his way to his chosen target. I tend to hear rather observe the raids; very often I have my head down working on code when suddenly there’s a series of thuds and crashes, followed by Biggles’ trademark urgent trot and Susan shouting through to me “Paul, he’s got one again, can you get it off him?”

I’ve been trying to work out what’s behind this increase in his kleptomaniac tendencies; it’s certainly not lack of attention because he’s never had so many tummy rubs and ear-fondles. I think perhaps I’ve made both him and Beanie fitter in my attempts to compensate for the loss of their beach runs. Their daily exercise now includes going round the perimeter of one of our local farmer’s big fields, a field so overgrown that at points the grass exceeds my knee height. I have to really pick my feet up to make good progress, and the pups get an even better workout; Beanie uses a bounding motion like a stone skipping over water, while Biggles stoically hammers his way through it.

Periodically their legs get a rest while the focus switches to intense core exercises, which coincidentally result in something smelly being deposited on furry necks and shoulders.

This is followed more often than not by a session in our latest dog-related extravagance, a big paddling pool. Some time ago Beanie had problems with weakness in her back legs, and a canine physio advised lots of slow, deliberate wading in deep water. I followed this advice religiously every time we were at the beach, and it worked, restoring Beanie to her normal sure-footed and athletic self. I saw this progress starting to unravel when the coronavirus lockdown stopped access to the beach, so now we have a surrogate beach on our patio.

Spurred on by kibble rewards the pups walk round it repeatedly, alternating direction each time, then do lengths. It’s not the same as wading through the sea against the wind and waves but it is helping to keep Beanie’s rear end strong. I’m sure it also feels great on hot sunny days when little Beagles may regret having non-removable furry romper suits.

I reckon this adds up to an overall increase in exercise for the pups and the more exercise they get, the more energy they seem to have; Beanie is often seen leaping on to the table on our deck in search of food remnants, while Biggles has more go-juice for his raiding and pillaging activities. Sadly it doesn’t quite seem to work that way for me, but at least I am getting better at crashing out on the sofa for daytime naps.

The 80’s song “Baggy Trousers” by Madness has been popping into my head quite a bit recently. It’s about the monotony of school life, but it seems equally applicable to life in lockdown: just like the kids in the song, we’ve also been “trying different ways to make a difference to the days.”  Susan now has a host of vegetable plants happily growing in containers both inside and outside the house, and if all goes well we’ll have our own supply of potatoes and salad later in the year. The “if all goes well” bit of course refers to how well we can protect the growing plants from the furry types. There have been a few Beagle-related incidents already, and I’ll get round to detailing them in the next post.

Speaking of Beagles, Beanie’s been using her lockdown time to answer the really big questions in life, such as “is it possible to climb into an empty bag of kibble, and are there any tasty kibble fragments to be found at the bottom of that bag?”

The answer to the first part of that question is clearly “yes”, and judging from the accompanying munching noises, I’d have to say that the second part gets a “yes” too.

Any Beagles wishing to duplicate this experiment to confirm the results for themselves should be aware that it is possible to get stuck in the bag, get into a panic and urgently require the assistance of a humie for extraction.

What’s more, if you’re a Beagle and you’re wondering “what’s it like to steal and rapidly consume hand-made pizza base while the yeast is still rising?” then Beanie has you covered on that one too, but the answer is somewhat nuanced.

In the short term she would say that the experience is overwhelmingly positive; the feel of that full tummy is ample compensation for being slapped about the face by the dough as you struggle to speed-swallow it. It’s only later in the day that the negative consequences become fully apparent. Firstly there’s the problem that the dough that barely fit into your stomach soon swells to approximately twice its initial size, and as a result your Dad compares you to an over-inflated rugby ball with comedy ears, which is both hurtful and inappropriate. Additionally, you may find that the serving for your tea-time meal is drastically reduced. In Beanie’s case, she received the kibble equivalent of a dry Ryvita crispbread with nothing on it, while Biggles got something akin to a full English all-day breakfast and really rubbed it in with exaggerated woofing and munching noises.

As for me, it’s all been about two fitness-related projects; I’ve written a training app which will be ready for release on Android platforms soon, and I’ve turned this..

into this:

I’m really enjoying have access to a full height pullup bar once again – it’s great to do muscle-ups without whacking my head into the ceiling – but even better than that, I’ve discovered that Biggles is simply the best furry training partner on the planet. Any time I go out into the garden for a workout he insists on coming with me and keeps me company for the whole session. I get his full attention when I chat to him about my goals, and in between sets he encourages me to do a form of active recovery that involves ear ruffling.

Only once has he run off with my chalk bag, which shows remarkable restraint for a little Beagle boy, and so I’ve rewarded him by making it possible for him to complete some lockdown projects of his own. Below is his latest work, but he’s also done a sterling job on adding extra ventilation to my socks.

Any time Susan needs to put drainage holes in a pot she’s preparing for her plants, he’s ready, willing and able to help. The holes don’t always end up in the places she wants them, but you can’t fault my little boy’s enthusiasm.