Superman will never be the same again

Posted on May 6, 2018 by Paul

It’s not often that Beanie & Biggles get individual walks, and still rarer that one of them has an intentional solo offlead adventure, so when I unleashed Biggles on the beach at Barassie to serve as a model in a product shoot I was doing, I wasn’t entirely sure what to expect.

As it turned out, he was absolutely brilliant! He stuck to me like glue as I hunted for good locations, and even seemed to read my mind when I thought about posing him on top of rocks. What I really needed though was action shots of him dashing through water, so I put him in a sit-wait at various points, got into position with my camera, and recalled him. I couldn’t always predict the path he would take on his return, but he did come back every time and hang around at my feet as I checked the results.

A lot of treats got handed out during that photoshoot, and by the end of it I felt even closer to my little boy than I normally do. As we walked back to the van I spotted the unmistakable profile of Beanie watching out for us from the driver’s seat. Her tail started wagging uncontrollably when she saw us, and when we were just a few meters from the van she dived off the seat to meet us at the door. The greeting we both received from her was incredible – it was obvious she’d really missed us, and though I took them both on a joint run along the beach straight afterwards, Susan told me in no uncertain terms that I should hold another solo photoshoot, this time with Beanie as the star. So I did.

Where Biggles almost walked to heel when offlead, Beanie was much more into sniffing and exploring as we walked across the beach, but any time I called her for a shot, she was there in a flash.

The only problem I had with The Beanster was her insistance on the one shot, one biccie rule. Any time I tried to get a few extra shutter clicks in, she wasn’t having it. Rules are rules, and Beanie has always been a stickler for them.

On our return to the van I found that Biggles hadn’t been too bothered by our departure, but he was happy to see us all the same. As before we went on another normal beach run together to round things off, and by the end of it, Beanie was ready for a bit of.. private time.

There may not be an actual “Do not disturb” sign in plain view, but the body language says it all!

Back at home when I was processing the photos I became acutely aware of just how often Biggles’ rude bits had made it into the frame. I had to reject a lot of otherwise cute images due to the conspicuous presence of his furry tackle, and I started to wonder if maybe he’d done it deliberately. I think I got my answer later in the day when one of the old Christopher Reeve-era Superman films came on the telly. Initially Biggles was curled up on the sofa, but just as John Williams’ excellent signature theme started to play, he rolled over onto his back and put it all on show.

Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No it isn’t, and it certainly wouldn’t get a PG rating like the movie.

It could have been a coincidence, but it felt like a statement, and I’m now completely incapable of hearing that tune without thinking of Biggles’s timely display.

Beanie’s Second Big Yahoo in Galloway

Posted on April 22, 2018 by Paul

Nearly five years ago Beanie decided to escape the confines of popular walking routes and go off on a solo romp in the Galloway hills. She unhooked her lead (which she was able to do back then, before I employed extra security measures) and went on her own Big Yahoo of an adventure.

After some hours of merrily following her nose she returned, tired but happy. I’ll never know what she got up to during that time, but I do know that after carrying her the 8km back to the car, the two of us spent the next day thoroughly knackered, with tender feet and sore muscles.

Last week Beanie returned to the Galloway hills, had an even bigger adventure away from the popular walking routes, and again spent the next day recuperating. This time however I know exactly what she got up to, because me and Biggles were with her every step of the way.

Our walk started by Bruce’s Stone at Glen Trool, but instead of following the well-trodden route up The Merrick, we headed out towards Gairland Burn and Loch Valley to try some of the lesser-visited hills.

The first part of the walk followed an old drystone wall and offered beautiful views back to Loch Trool. The weather was perfect; dry and bright but not too warm. It strongly reminded me of the hilly farming regions of North Yorkshire I enjoyed as a boy.

The next section was long, boggy and boring for anybody not in possession of a highly-tuned sniffer, but when we emerged from it we were by Loch Valley, getting our first view of the hills we’d be sampling.

Looking forward towards the hills

It was here that we answered a question that’s been foremost in the minds of top current affairs experts of late. No I’m not talking about the Brexit implementation details, or the Russia/Syria thing, I’m talking about the really big issue, specifically: “are Earl’s Air-dried Beef Steaks any good?” Our pups have had growing respect for Earl – who seems to be a Golden Retriever who makes the cheap doggy stuff at chain-store Aldi – ever since they tried his dental sticks. Knowing that a big walk was ahead of us I’d grabbed a serving of Earl’s latest creation and stuffed it in my camera bag, but I had no idea whether it would pass muster. And the answer? Well if speed of consumption is any guide then yep, Earl knows his stuff and his beef steaks are well worth speed-swallowing.

Moving on we passed the long-abandoned “sheepfold” between Loch Valley and Loch Neldricken, sniffed it, peed on it a bit, and then headed uphill. The hillside was covered in a thick layer of dried, reedy grass which was so soft it sucked the energy right out of my legs, but made very comfortable bedding material for his Biggleship.

After no small amount of climbing up and over things we eventually ended up at the top of a hill that actually has a name: Craignairy. The weather had been cycling between heavy cloud and bright sunshine up to that point, but as we reached the summit plateau and looked out over Loch Enoch towards The Merrick, we got the perfect combination of the two.

Beanie and Biggles sipped from the pool of fresh, clear drinking water that had been so thoughtfully provided by the summit cairn, and I continued to take a few shots.

Deciding that this would be a good time to confirm the initial conclusions regarding Earls’ beef steaks, I put Beanie & Biggles into “wait” position by my feet, and placed one “steak” on the top of each of my boots. After a short wait, I gave them the go-ahead, at which point Beanie promptly grabbed the steak that had been intended for Biggles.

In the split-second that followed, I saw a range of emotions pass over Biggles’ little face. First there was shock, then panic, and then resignation, even though there was still one steak sitting untouched on my other boot. I started pointing and trying to get the words out to Biggles before Beanie could gulp her steak down and go for round two: “Oi! Biggles! Quick, get the other one!” It was close, but he came to his senses just in time. Beanie of course was aware of her missed opportunity, and complained loudly:

What?? I was going to have that!

Noooo!

As often happens Biggles didn’t really understand why Beanie was woofing, but decided to join in anyway, so I got stick from both of them for trying to keep things fair.

Sometimes, no matter how hard you try, you just can’t get it right.

Now we had to choose which of Craignairy’s neighboring hills we would visit next: the worryingly named “Dungeon Hill”, or the larger “CraigNaw” that was sort of on the way back to the van. Given the light and the time of day, I decided that CraigNaw was the better choice.

The way ahead to the start of Craignaw

Craignaw took longer to climb than I expected; every time we reached what I thought would be the summit, yet another short climb was revealed ahead of us. Regardless, there were plenty of great views to be had on the way up, including one that made even Biggles feel a bit inadequate.

Looking back to CraigNairy

And other views from the top

We had our final round of beef steaks at the very top of Craignaw, and this time there were no mishaps.

The walk out to this lovely region and the hill climbs from it had all been great, but now we had a long, boggy trudge back to the van. For most of this I edged around the worst mud and marsh spots, but the closer we got to the finish line, the more slapdash I became. At one point, having untangled Beanie & Biggles’s leads for the umpteenth time, I thought “Why bother avoiding the wet stuff? My feet are wet anyway, and this will go faster if I plough straight through it”. So that’s what I did at the next muddy pool, and almost went over as my entire lower leg disappeared into bog. Ever the caring Beagle, Beanie came straight to my side, and used my sudden loss of height to gain access to my trouser pockets. I gently but firmly extracted her snout from my trousers, then not so gently extracted my leg from the bog, and returned to my original “avoid the bog” walking strategy.

We were all tired and hungry when we finally reached the van; I reckon we’d probably walked around 18km in total, and a fair proportion of that had been on hills. I served up the pups’ tea and while they half-swallowed, half-inhaled it from their bowls, I perched on the back seat in my mud-soacked clothes, sipping an instant cappuccino and demolishing a bag of bacon rashers crisps. Now two days later I still have muscle-soreness from carrying all my camera gear on that walk, but I know that at some point we’ll be back to do the hills we missed.

Magic Bottoms and Outrageous Seagulls

Posted on April 7, 2018 by Paul

I don’t know if this is a common Beagle-owner trait or something that’s peculiar to me, but some weird part of my brain always times Beanie and Biggles when they go for a dump. Though I couldn’t put an actual number to it, I have a sense of what constitutes a normal squat time; if this is exceeded I become concerned, sometimes with good reason. At the very least, a long squat can indicate the presence of what a software engineer might describe as improperly terminated output. If that “output” is left to dangle there for too long, the afflicted Beagle will almost certainly try to remedy the situation by scooting on the ground, leaving a skid-mark on their fur that is as unpleasant to view as it is nose-unfriendly. At the other end of the scale, an overly long poo attempt could indicate a more serious issue such as a blockage. Consequently when the Beanster assumed the position for way too long on a recent beach run, she got my attention.

As I headed to her she came out of her squat and ran to me, but her gait didn’t quite look normal and she kept pausing every few yards. Given that she’d only just returned to full off-lead activity after a shoulder tweak I wasn’t sure whether to be more concerned about that or the overlong poo. As it turned out, I soon discovered that the two symptoms had the same cause. When I’d unclipped her lead just a few minutes ago, she’d had one tail, but now she had two. One was long, furry and mostly brown with a white tip, while the other was only six inches in length, and mostly white with random streaks of brown along it. Immediately identifying the second one as the imposter, I prepared for the extraction; a poo bag went over my hand, and I gingerly grasped the redundant tail and gently began to pull on it. An inch of extra tail came out of Beanie’s bum hole making it seven inches long in total, then another inch, and all the while I felt certain that I was about to reach the end of it, but it just kept on coming. As it passed 10 inches in length I imagined myself as an old-school magician pulling an endless stream of handkerchiefs out of a pocket. At eleven inches I was expecting to see the ears of a rabbit beginning to emerge out of Beanie’s orifice, but finally at twelve inches the thing – which appeared to be the remnants of a plastic bag – came free from Beanie’s magic bottom. She was very relieved to get that out of her, and so was I, though I was left puzzling over how it got in there in the first place. The rest of our beach run went without incident, but the day still had one little surprise to spring on us.

After the run I bundled the pups into their crates in the car, picked up Susan from the gym and parked up at our local supermarket. We have a policy of never leaving our Beagles unattended in a vehicle, so while Susan went shopping I kept watch over the furry types. Biggles settled down for a nap almost immediately, but Beanie sat up in her crate to snoop on the other shoppers. Suddenly I heard something tap the roof of the car, and Beanie sprang to attention, while Biggles started to snore. I checked the mirrors but saw no-one in the immediate vicinity. Just as I was about to dismiss the sound, it happened again, and again. Something was on the roof of our car, and it was moving! Beanie sounded the alarm and her excited movements caused the car to rock slightly on its suspension. This disturbed the visitor on our roof, causing more tapping, which in turn prompted yet more baying, but Biggles remained curled up and snoring through it all. My ears were starting to ring from the noise and clearly it had got too much for our visitor also, because whatever it was shifted to the roof an adjacent car finally allowing us to view it: a particularly fat seagull. Seeing the cause of the disturbance didn’t stop Beanie’s baying frenzy, but its tone did at least switch from alarm to outrage. The noise soon attracted the attention of passers-by and I couldn’t help but chuckle, at which point Captain Vigilant in the crate next to Beanie woke up, let out a startled woof and sprang to his feet. Some days my little boy has the reactions of a drugged Sloth, but this day he wasn’t anything like that fast :) The baying continued for short while even after the seagull had departed, and as often happens I was left wishing I had a sweatshirt with “I’m not with these Beagles” printed on it in bold letters.

Finally, here are a few shots from a less eventful day out at our local park.

This next shot is a near-duplicate of one I took over seven years ago. Apart from some white fur around the eyes, the pups haven’t changed much!

Beanie and Biggles as they are today

And as they were seven years ago