Three bonces are better than one

Posted on January 18, 2020 by Paul

I normally have a rule that I’ll take the pups on their regular beach runs in any weather so long as the wind isn’t forecast to be 50 mph or more. Unfortunately we’ve had so many days with strong wind recently that I’ve had to break that rule, and on one such day I was given a reminder as to why I made the rule in the first place.

Getting the dynamic duo harnessed and on lead was a battle in itself; we keep a stash of plastic carrier bags in the back of the car just in case we need to shop, and of course the wind tried to grab them the instant I raised the tailgate. Then I had to deal with Mr Biggles’ toilet routine. He always, and I do mean always, has to take a dump during the first kilometre of the run. To avoid being stuck with a full poo bag for half of the run I walk him round and coax him into dropping his load while we’re still in easy reach of a bin. This usually works, but on this day the wind kept distracting him; time and again I observed his little poop chute bulge promisingly only to retract as a new sniff sped up his nose. My patience lasted for about five minutes, but then I decided that I couldn’t stand walking around in the wind-chill any longer – we just had to get going and generate some heat. I pressed the start button on my gps watch and off we went! Beanie and Biggles surged forward excitedly as they often do on windy days, but after only two hundred yards The Bigglet remembered that he had unfinished business. He jammed on the brakes, wiggled his bum as though shaking a loose fitting pair of pants down to his ankles, and squatted. The upside was that the bin was still reasonably handy, but those 50 mph gusts seemed really keen to make the poo bagging as difficult as possible. Against all odds I managed to scoop up my boy’s logs without losing the bag, but as I tried to tie the damn thing closed, the wind up-ended it and whacked it against me, splatting some of the contents onto my bright yellow running jacket. Nice.

I uttered some choice curses, then we jogged back to the bin at the car park where I was able to dump the remainder of the.. er.. dump. A wet wipe from the car dispatched the poo splat on my jacket, after which I reset my watch and started the run again. We barely got past the initial poo drop zone when a new problem struck: Beanie’s extending lead jammed solid at close to full extension. I thought about just winding all the tape around the handle, but in such strong winds I knew I’d still be fighting it for the whole run. The sensible move was to jog back to the car one more time and hope that I could somehow fix it; I’m certainly no stranger to the inner workings of a Flexi lead, and I always carry a few tools in the car. I reset my watch again, turned the pups around and off we went back to the car park with the tape from Beanie’s lead flapping madly in the wind.

I couldn’t be bothered trying to get the pups back in their crates so I just let them clamber in through the driver’s door and ushered them both onto the passenger seat while I wrestled the door closed. I took a moment to savor the stillness and calm while the wind whistled round the outside of the car, and once that moment was done I began the search for a tool to pry open the lead casing. Beanie and Biggles were keen to help; their little ginger bonces tracked my every movement, and when I opened the glove box and the other storage compartments I had to wait until both sniffers had finished their rummage before I could begin mine. Eventually I found a multi-tool with a suitable appendage and set to work on the lead. The pups were still showing so much interest that I gave them a running commentary as I worked. It really felt like a team effort with two sets of bright eyes watching me intently as I described the process to them, then looking down to study the innards of the lead. I cleared some sand and other beach debris from the mechanism (sadly none of this was edible – Beanie in particular made sure of that), rewound the spool, snapped the case back together and tested it. The lead was now working well enough to continue our run! I thanked my furry technical consultants for their help, and off we went for the third time. As it turned out there were no further setbacks; third time was indeed lucky in this case.

Not all tasks benefit from the involvement of Team Beagle, but the ones that do are certainly more fun :)

Merry Smelly Christmas

Posted on December 29, 2019 by Paul

Two things combined to make this Christmas a particularly smelly one, and they both happened on the day before Christmas Eve.

The pups were due one of their regular beach runs and even though I knew the roads would be packed with distracted, frustrated shoppers, I bundled the furry duo into their travel crates and set off to the beach park. Almost as soon as I got underway the local radio station warned of long queues on all roads leading to the town’s superstores, so I took the most circuitous route I could think of and was very pleased with myself when I arrived at the beach car park without any major hold-ups. I was somewhat less pleased when I lifted the tailgate and realized that I’d somehow forgotten to bring the pups’ leads. I stood for a moment to consider my options while both Beanie and Biggles pawed impatiently at their crates, desperate to get started on their pre-Christmas adventure.

I didn’t want to abort the run, but going back home to get the leads wouldn’t be a good idea; I’d been lucky with the traffic once, but twice? That would be pushing it. I thought about how I’ve been able to increase the off-lead portion of our runs in recent years. Could it be that Beanie and Biggles were now ready for the ultimate test – a full hour of freedom on the beach, just like normal doggies? I looked at the two twitching black noses before me, still in their crates, and I knew the answer was a resounding “NO!”. But there might be a compromise. Bits of rope are dumped on the beach by the tide all the time, and some way up the beach regular walkers have started a collection of some the more interesting items of flotsam and jetsam: oars, partial canoe hulls, road signs and traffic cones – even a headless Buzz Lightyear figure. It’s kind of an ever-changing piece of modern art, and again I’ve often seen old, worn-out rope used to lash some of the items together. A plan started to form: I could take Beanie and Biggles out for the first part of the run off-lead, gambling that by the time we reached the turning point (which is usually the point where Beagle compliance becomes an issue) I’d have found a couple of lengths of rope to use as makeshift leads for the return journey. I checked the little running pouch I always wear around my waist; in it were four strips of cooked chicken and three bone-shaped doggy biccies. Anything is possible if you have enough chicken and biccies. That’s a fact. I looked back at beanie and Biggles and said to them “Alright pups! We’re going to do this, but you’ve got to stay close to your Dad, OK?”

You might be expecting the rest of this tale to involve hours spent searching for missing Beagles on a cold beach, with the light rapidly failing, but if so, you’re wrong. Shame on you for assuming that our two furry Candidates for The Chaos Party would misbehave so badly! For the most part Beanie and Biggles stayed close to me, and I did find enough rope to fashion two post-apocalyptic, gnarly Pirates-of-the-Carribean style leads to get Beanie and Biggles safely back to their crates in the car. The only problem was that shortly before I found the rope, the dynamic duo found the rotten carcass of some unrecognizable animal. What followed was the most frenzied bit of Beagle breakdancing I’ve seen all year. More than once I dragged stinky pup#1 out of the dead zone and turned my attention to even stinkier pup#2, only to see pup#1 go right back in a for another rolling session. By the time I’d got them both away from the corpse and secured them with rope, the stench coming off them was overpowering, and remember that’s coming from someone who after twelve years with Beagles is mostly noseblind. I took my shoes off and dragged Team Stink into the sea, doing my best to wash away all that pong. It helped, but not much. We got caught in traffic on the way home and when we finally made it back to the house, the three of us were very wet, very cold and very, very smelly.

“Not to worry” I thought, “I can have a nice hot bath and hose down the pups in the shower”. It was at this very moment that our 16 year old combi-boiler retired from the hot water service industry. That relaxing, warming bath didn’t happen and it won’t until we can get a replacement boiler fitted in the New Year. Fortunately the part of the boiler that heats the radiators has stayed functional, and thanks to prior camping adventures we do have a portable shower of sorts (think 5 litre pump-action weed sprayer with a shower head). So after all that we did get warm and mostly clean, but this Christmas has still been considerably more fragrant than usual, and not in a good way.

Even smelly pups are entitled to special doggy-safe mince pies

And presents!

Including a brand new extra-large fabric box to hold Beanie & Biggle’s vast toy collection

Time for a good rummage!

Code Red in the Left Hand Crate

Posted on December 17, 2019 by Paul

At least once a week at our local gym a stressed voice interrupts the piped music to announce “Code red at the pool!”. This phrase indicates a life-threatening emergency, and given the number of such announcements you’d be tempted to conclude that the swimming pool is a very dangerous place indeed and best avoided; a bit like London, or Paisley on a Saturday night, but more consistently wet. Fortunately most of these “emergencies” turn out to be false alarms, but earlier this week we had a Code Red of our own, and I can tell there was nothing false about it.

Like most Beagle boys, Biggles has only a limited vocabulary, but subtle variations in delivery allow him to impart many different meanings to a even single”Woof!”. The volume, intonation and duration of the woof that woke Susan and myself early one morning conveyed a sense of urgency that needed no translation. It was a Code Red woof for sure. If we’d been in an episode of Star Trek Next Generation instead of in our bedroom, then Biggles would have been playing the role of Geordi La Forge, warning Captain Picard that a warp core breach was imminent.

Just like the staff at the gym we sprang into action; while Susan went to free Biggles from his crate, I stumbled over a minefield of randomly discarded socks, squeaky stuffing-free foxes and other toys to deactivate the alarm and open all the barriers that stood between Biggles and the outside loo. As my boy followed me into the kitchen he still managed a brief sniff at the foil container from the previous night’s lasagne ( a true Beagle!), then ran straight out into the garden to deal with his urgent business. When he returned a few minutes later he was visibly relieved, and thanks to the urgency in that code red announcement the bed in his crate was still dry and free of any unwanted bottom sausages. Now that he’d been let out of his crate he didn’t want to get back in and made his case for bringing forward the daily Big Bed snuggle time with us humies. It’s always dangerous to give into such requests because it sets a precedent, but of course we did, and when you let one Beagle do it, you kind of have to let the other one do it too. Our sleep was further disrupted that morning by loud snoring from under the covers and spiky paws trying to claim more space than should be required by a little furry person.

Speaking of snuggle time and little furry people, we’ve now moved our cheap eBay Reebok Step knock-off to the side of the bed typically used by The Beanster. Since we put a thick memory foam topper on our mattress our little girl has occasionally been having difficulty jumping onto the bed when she’s just got out of her crate. If we leave the bedroom door open at any point later in the day, Beanie can and will jump into the bed effortlessly, but some mornings now she can be a bit hesitant, and the Step should help. It’s the first concrete sign that at 12 Beanie is not quite the spring chicken she once was, but I’m continuing with all the exercises recommended by the doggie physio to keep her and Biggles in the best possible shape for as long as possible – including wading sessions in the sea (even though they’re not necessarily everyone’s idea of fun at this time of year!)