Imagine for a moment that you are a Beagle in the middle of all this coronavirus craziness. Your walks are repetitive and uninspired, you’re not allowed to pick the pockets of random strangers, and you’re just not getting the attention you deserve. What do you do to spice things up? How do you prove to yourself and the world that you’ve still got power and influence? Beanie’s answer to this has always been the same: get sick enough to require medical intervention. A vet-worthy malady ticks all a little girl’s boxes:

• you instantly grab the spotlight from your pesky brother, no matter how many socks he’s just nicked from the bedroom
• you get chauffeur driven to the veterinary practice
• you charm everyone in the waiting room and get lots of attention
• you stand a pretty good chance of having a thermometer pushed up your bottom (and when is that ever a bad thing?)
• after it’s all over and your Mum & Dad are grumbling as they pay the bill, you get a free biccie from the receptionist

The lockdown rules took one of Beanie’s favorite sickness options off the menu – after all it’s hard to find a blockage-creating non-food item to swallow down if all your walks have to be on-lead and closely supervised. Ever the resourceful and expensive pupplet, Beanie managed to rustle up a nail bed infection. It took a little while to develop; first she quietly pranged a nail – perhaps while chasing around the garden with one of our vulnerable, recently potted tomato plants – and then she cultivated it with frequent licking until, a few days later, she was hopping around on three legs looking suitably sorry for herself. The call to the local practice was made, an appointment time was set, and as far as Beanie was concerned the scene was set for some classic vet-on-spoiled-Beagle action! Unfortunately Beanie hadn’t realized that thanks to the coronavirus, this entire vet session was going to be virtual.

When the appointment time arrived I hurried Biggles out of the lounge and visited the URL provided by the vet on our aging little Android tablet. Seconds later our vet-du-jour popped onto the screen and Susan delivered the relevant facts.

“OK, let’s see the patient!” said the vet.

This should have been easy, but it wasn’t, because minutes before the session started Beanie had wrapped herself extra, extra tightly in her favorite blankie. Extraction was non-trivial. Ever been handed a cling-film wrapped sandwich? It was just like that: I had to hunt around for the loose end, and only then could the endless unwinding begin. To her credit the vet stayed awake during all of this and was ready to lead us through a basic remote examination – all that was required first was to tell the tablet to switch to its rear camera. I had no clue how to do it. I can’t tell you how embarrassing that was.  I’ve got a degree in Computer Science, I’ve been a programmer for thirty-odd years and I build my own computers, but when it comes to mucking around with the camera functions on a phone or tablet, I’m hopeless. The only selfie I’ve ever taken was with a high-end DSLR on a tripod. Fortunately the vet was well-versed in tablet operation; she talked me through that, and then she talked me through the first step of the examination: gum color and condition.

I brush my Beaglets’ teeth every day so I felt very confident about this bit, and to make things even easier Beanie still had a really gross mouth malfunction from her blankie-wrapped nap; scarcely any manipulation was need for the first side! Now I had to turn her around and show the other side to the camera. Beanie was not cooperative, and really didn’t want to turn around to face the other side. She only weighs 11kg but she can resist very effectively when she gets suspicious, and having that tablet thing  hovering within inches of her face was definitely making her suspicious. It was a struggle, but I got the job done.

Next up was a check for sore muscles and joints along the affected leg. With each successive vet-guided manipulation, Beanie moved from being merely uncooperative to being downright stubborn. By the time we got to the affected foot, she’d had enough.

“Feel the digits, spread them gently with your fingers and observe how Beanie reacts” instructed the vet.

I’ll tell you how Beanie reacted. She wriggled out of my arms, leaped off the sofa, and despite her sore foot, legged it. I immediately gave chase. Recapture should have been easy; we’d closed the baby gate across the lounge doorway so there was no way out of the room, but it turns out that I can’t do laps of the sofa as fast as a little Beagle. Despite my size and cornering disadvantages I finally managed to grab The Beanster, returning to the sofa with her clamped firmly against my chest. Thanks to Susan’s careful handling of the tablet the vet probably saw every part of this adventure, but being the consummate professional, she said nothing. As I spread the toes on Beanie’s foot, the damaged nail was revealed along with inflammation on the toe below it.

The diagnosis was made, antibiotics and painkillers were prescribed, and credit card numbers were read out. It turns out that during a pandemic, makers of medical products get to charge pretty much whatever they want; Beanie has had a lot of antibiotics over the years, and this was two or three times the normal cost! Beanie of course was not bothered about that – she was all about the biccie, and now it was indeed biccie time. A quick rendition of her special begging / biccie-summoning dance to the receptionist was all that would be needed to get the big payoff! Except there was no receptionist, because we were all still at home. Bugger!

When I set out alone in the car to collect the prescription I think Beanie was still hoping that I’d be bringing back more than medication. I got a very waggy welcome on my return, but this quickly turned to disappointment when all I had to show for my journey was bunch of small torpedo-shaped pills. The grim reality is that when you see the virtual vet, you only get a virtual biccie, and you can’t chew virtual biccies.

Her Royal Highness is now back on top form and another young and tender tomato plant has been ripped out of its pot to be taken on a mad chase round the garden. Still, I’ll always take a naughty but healthy Beanie over a sick one.

Biggles without a sock

Biggles with a sock. Snoring is noticeably louder when the sock is present.

I’ve taken the pups to our local beach three times a week, most weeks, for the last ten years. That’s around 7500 – 8000 beach miles we’ve done together! A lot of those runs involved some offlead fun, indeed some of them featured AWOL incidents that resulted in much more offlead fun than I ever intended, but together they’ve made a huge contribution to the quality of life that Beanie and Biggles have enjoyed. The lockdown rules have now put a stop to that, and runs with me on local roads have met with declining enthusiasm. By way of compensation, a sustained improvement in the weather has put garden play sessions back on the menu. I’m happy to report that these *have* met with furry approval, especially when edibles have been involved.

Wait a minute! Is his cow ear bigger than mine?!!

Well you know what they say: chew now, beat your brother up later!

More fun could be on the way when Susan’s horticultural experiments are moved from their little indoor pots into the back garden, where they’ll suddenly be within reach of the Beaglets. If all goes well we should have carrots, lettuce, radishes and potatoes later this year.

To my untrained eyes it seems that most vegetable things looks like cress when they’re starting to grow, in much the same way that all new babies look like Winston Churchill.

This apparently is going to be a courgette when it grows up. If I hadn’t been told, there’s no way I’d have guessed.

One thing I do know for sure is that there’ll be a smacked Beagle bottom if the owner of said bottom chooses to do a bit of unsanctioned digging or nibbling.

Would that innocent little boy rip up our crop of veg? Socks are the natural prey of The Bigglet, but forbidden items have a powerful allure of their own.

We’ve just completed our first day under the new, tougher measures intended to slow the spread of SARS-CoV-2 and we’ve found it strangely calming.

For some weeks now we’ve felt very at odds with the general public’s attitude to the virus.  On dog walks I’ve gone out of my way to avoid contact with others, while they’ve been happy stop and chat to one another in close proximity, seemingly oblivious to the risk of infection. In my fitness photography business I’ve had to bite back the urge to contradict prospective clients when they’ve been saying “Why would the gyms close? This coronavirus thing isn’t even as bad as regular flu.” When the government’s advice got stronger but people still didn’t seem to be changing their habits we knew tougher measures were coming, and I was very concerned that we might end up losing the right to walk Beanie and Biggles entirely.

If Biggles could sense any tension from me, he didn’t show it. As long as he got his food on time, could ram his furry bottom into my face when making a bed next to me on the sofa, and was still able to trade socks for treats, all was right in his world.

Beanie however clearly picked up on my worries and began following me around like a velcro dog.  Any time I left the room, she had to keep tabs on me. When I returned from an unavoidable trip to the local shop for milk, she danced round me as though I’d been gone for days. Any time Susan stretched out on the sofa for a nap, Beanie would mount her legs for a stress-relieving and highly vigorous humping session. The only time my little girl could properly relax was when the whole pack was together in the living room.

Now the “lockdown” has happened and the rules have been spelled out, all that has changed. Dog walks are still on the menu, and Beanie and Biggles can still enjoy two each day, so long as I do one while Susan does the other. I took the furries out for their first constitutional this morning. Just as we were setting out we encountered a neighbor returning from their walk; I automatically moved to the extreme opposite side of the street, and for the first time they did the same, allowing us to pass each other whilst staying well over the recommended 2 metres apart.

I took the pups along country roads that I know to be very, very quiet; ordinarily I could do that same walk every day for a month and barely meet another soul. Today – ironically due to the lockdown rules – I encountered several other walkers and cyclists, but they all knew to keep to their side of the road. I’m not wild about having our freedom curtailed like this, but it’s a big relief to me that everyone finally seems to be taking the threat seriously. As I’ve relaxed, so has The Beanster. She’s still humping Susan’s legs of course, but now the rumpy-pumpy is less desperate and no longer resembles a scene from an extreme porn flick.

All we need now is for the supermarkets to get their acts together, implement social distancing policies and stock the shelves, and maybe we can get through this thing without getting infected. I just hope they do that soon, because our supply of bone-shaped biccies isn’t going to last forever.

Waddya mean the biccies are running out! Get to the shops now Dad, this is an emergency!