Beagle AWOL incidents are like buses; you can go for ages without having one, and then suddenly you’ll get two in quick succession. The first of them – involving Biggles – could have ended really badly; truly the stuff of nightmares.

I’ve been particularly busy lately and Beagle walks have been more about fulfilling my obligations than enjoyment, but I’ve tried to keep at least one day a week free for more adventurous outings. In recent weeks we’ve visited Loudoun Hill, walked circuits around the Ayrshire gorge, and of course seen a smelly waterfall named after Biggles.

Last Sunday however I was particularly short on time, the weather was dull and wet, and the best I could manage was a short trip along the coast to Barassie. Parking as carefully as possible in one of the suspension-hammering areas by the sea front, I unloaded Beanie & Biggles and walked them out across the sand until we’d got well clear of the main road. Like a seasoned drug pusher I gave my two furry clients a free sample of quality merchandise (chicken) to get them hooked, and made them well aware that I had an even bigger stash of the good stuff in my pocket. I then pointed them at the sea, and unhooked their leads. For the first half hour things went well; the two of them trotted off together in search of sniffs and edibles, only leaving the water to get another fix of chicken.

I’ve let them have off-lead adventures at Barassie several times before and each time they’ve stayed reassuringly close to the water, where there are always little dead crabs and other seafood nibbles to be foraged. I assumed that this time would be no different, but I it hadn’t occurred to me that as this was a Sunday afternoon, scores of other dog walkers had left scent trails between the pavement and the beach. Shortly after we turned to head back Biggles latched on to some of those trails and quickened his pace. I wasn’t overly concerned because he was still by the sea, but then his nose put him on course for the stretch of grass that sits between the beach and the road. I called him to me, but he’d been afflicted by that age old Beagle curse: selective deafness. The Beanster responded quickly however, so I attached her lead in short order and we went off together in pursuit of his highness. He was clearly having a good time, but all the while he was getting closer and closer to the road. The fact that Beanie and I were chasing him only spurred him on, but we were now too close to the road for me to risk changing direction to lure him back to the safety of the beach. He crossed from the grass onto the pavement by a minor road that serves only local resident traffic, but a junction with the busy main road was just a few meters away. In my head I could almost hear the squeal of brakes and the brief high-pitched shriek as I struggled to catch up with him; the crazy thing is I’ve been training an emergency recall word with them for years now for situations exactly like this, but in the heat of the moment I never thought to use it. Very fortunately at the last moment he was stopped by something more basic: a lamppost that needed to be peed on. His cocked leg was just lowering as my outstretched hand grabbed his collar, bringing this latest escapade to a happy end.

It goes without saying that Barassie is now off the table for a while, and I’m grateful that I’ve had a tragedy-free reminder that even older and less disobedient Beagles are powerless to resist the call of a sniffy trail. I’ve also been reminded that all the emergency recall training in the world is useless if I don’t use it when it’s needed!

As I said at the start of this post there has been a second Beagle AWOL incident, and this one was caused by a storm called “Gareth”. News reports made a big deal of high winds and rain in Wales and the North or England, but our local forecast noted only winds up to 50mph and brief showers; these are hardly extreme conditions on the west coast of Scotland and not at all deserving of a name, so we thought little of it. The forecast had underestimated the force of the wind however and unbeknown to us, Gareth flattened one of our fences during the night. Early in the morning his Biggleship requested a trip to the outside loo and returned without incident, but then Beanie went for her morning duties, and decided to make the most of the opportunities afforded by the downed fence. Fortunately for us, the fence merely separates our garden from that of our neighbor who is also a dog owner, so Beanie never got true freedom; unfortunately for our neighbor it’s more than likely that Beanie left a little foul-smelling surprise somewhere in their garden. Wherever that little turd deposit is, it’ll have been carefully positioned so as to avoid obvious detection until squelched underfoot, because that’s how The Beanster rolls.