When Susan suggested getting snuffle-mats for the pups as Christmas presents, I have to admit that I just didn’t understand what all the fuss was about. To me they just looked like messes of fabric, and very expensive messes at that. Being a stingy Yorkshire git I talked her into going the DIY route, and yesterday evening our lounge became a snuffle-mat factory; I had my head down cutting cheap throws from The Range into strips, while Susan carefully tied those strips onto the plastic sink drainer mats I’d found in Morrisons for just £1 a pop.

We got through one feature length movie, two episodes of Star Trek and four rounds of coffee before they were done, and Biggles didn’t help by trying to make a bed on them at every opportunity. Once they were finished I closed my eyes and ran my hand through them, imagining a Beagle snout foraging for buried treats, and finally began to understand why these things are popular. I think these could just be the most fun pressies Beanie & Biggles have had to date. What’s more, having made our own mats we’ve still got some leftover strips for emergency repairs; I suspect we’ll be putting them to good use if Biggles decides that the best way to get to the treats is to nibble through all the tufty bits. Let’s just hope he doesn’t swallow too many of the tufts and force us into a visit to the emergency vet!

Finally, here’s a few shots from a trip to Semple Castle park a week ago. It’s a very pretty park – especially on a sunny but frosty day – and is only a half hour drive from our home, yet in the eight years we’ve been in Ayrshire this was our first visit!

It’s surprisingly rare that Beanie & Biggles go off on their own long-distance adventure during the offlead section of our beach runs together, but if they do I can pretty much guarantee they’ll end up combing the rocks near the far end of the shore. On a particularly cold but sunny day last week I figured we might as well cut out the intervening 7km of beach and start our outing right by the fun bit.

This decision was very well received; the rock pools were full of little seafood nibbles, and birds had gathered by the water’s edge, prompting some high speed attack runs by the Beanster.

From my point of view starting here had an extra benefit; it kept us further away from the dreaded remains of a dead seal. Beanie & Biggles first discovered the dead seal some time ago, but it’s still hanging around and barely a week goes by without someone rolling in what’s left of it. The absolute worst point came when it turned into a kind of rotten seal soup; Beanie was smelling so bad after a roll in it that no amount of scrubbing in the sea could diminish the pong. The only solution was to frogmarch her into the shower with me and use a potent combination of tomato ketchup and human and doggy cleaning agents on her; I hadn’t needed to such dire measures since she was a pup, and she was huffy with me for days after.

It was lovely being out there with them and getting to watch all their activities close-up; usually I’d be a kilometre or two behind them, desperately racing along the beach to catch them up and hardly daring to guess what they might be getting up to.

For the most part they both moved easily between the rocks and the sea, and unlike me had no trouble negotiating the slippy moss and seaweed-covered bits. Still, every now and then Biggles would pause before gingerly taking his next step. I’ve observed the same thing when I’ve accidentally parked the van by a deep puddle; if he can’t properly see what he’s stepping onto, he’s very cautious.

It’s a surprisingly sensible approach given that he’s a little Beagle boy, and on this occasion it did save him from a few unexpected soakings. The same cannot be said for The Beanster.

Of course all that caution was abandoned whenever Beanie caught a scent and he had to double-time it to catch her up!

This was probably the longest time the two of them have been (intentionally) offlead during a walk since they were pups, and I have to say they behaved impeccably.

Of course all good things have to end sometime, and with the sun getting low in the sky I decided to get them back on lead. I put my camera away, got their leads out and called them to me. Predictably Beanie chose this exact moment to take off on a mad chase after a little group of birds, with Biggles baying his head off just behind her. I watched as they shrank into the distance, but remained unconcerned; something told me they’d be back soon, so I continued to prepare the handful of chicken they always get for voluntary lead re-attachment. Sure enough they came sprinting back to me almost as quickly as they’d left, and we walked back to the van together for a final round of treats before heading home.

Even a year ago this kind of outing wouldn’t have been possible, or at least would have been cut short by naughtiness. I’m not going to claim they’ve suddenly turned into trustworthy, controllable doggies (I’ve done that so many times before, only to be proved wrong!), nor am I going to get complacent with them, but it was very nice to sample the kind of walk that is often denied to Beagle owners!

Here in our part of Ayrshire the last fireworks sounded about four days after Bonfire Night, and we should now be free of them until the New Year. Their affect on Beanie didn’t pass quite so quickly however; for about a week after she remained very sensitive to sudden loud sounds and her fear of beeping noises was re-awakened.

Unfortunately it was during this period that Susan consulted my help in setting up a new app for her phone – a timer to help her with interval training exercises. I use the same app when I’m running, and without thinking I configured its settings to match my own, including my choice of sound to indicate the end of an interval. Called “Laser” the sound is, as you might expect, a short electronic “zap”; I find this noise is hard to miss, even if loud music is playing in the background. As I demonstrated the app to Susan in our living room it was flat out impossible to miss, because it was immediately accompanied by a scared Beanie trying to get on to my lap. It took a few seconds for me to realize what had happened, but when I did, I stopped the timer and dived into the settings menu to find a sound less scary to little Beagle girls.

I came across various titles as I scrolled through the options until, finally, I landed on the most innocuous name possible: Twinkle. I could quite understand that after sitting through hundreds of end-of-the-world sci-fi movies with me, The Beanster might have cause to fear “Laser”, but surely nobody – even someone with really big floppy ears – could be afraid of something called Twinkle? Well, it wasn’t as terrifying as Laser, but it was still pretty unsettling. I decided to quit while I wasn’t quite so far behind and ended the demo at that point.

A few days later Beanie even reacted to noises on a repeat of an original Star Trek episode which she has sat through many times before, and at that point I publicly declared her fear to be silly and unacceptable. I don’t mind having a ban on lasers in the house, or even twinkles, but my right to watch old Star Trek episodes is sacrosanct. Oddly enough Beanie seemed to understand this and her beep-phobia has gone into remission once again.

On a different note, after all that driving around to distant hills and lochs I’ve rediscovered the joys of walking round our local park. Amazingly this was the pups’ first visit in maybe a year, so there was lot of re-sniffing to be done, along with rolling, stick chomping, and of course woofing (but only as a parting shot to big doggies that were safely on lead as we passed).