In our eyes Beanie is still in remarkable shape for her age, but she can find the main walk a bit of a strain these days and her walking pace can be a bit.. how shall I put it.. “stately” at times.

At the same time she does not appreciate being left behind if Biggles and the pups go gallivanting off on adventures without her; Beanie has always been a very independent girl but she does like walking with her pack. So, how to keep Beanie included in the longer main walks without pushing her to do too much? This is how:

Now Beanie would like to make a few things clear: the vehicle pictured above is not a pushchair or a stroller, it’s a royal carriage. It just happens to be the sort of royal carriage that was mass-produced in China and has a handlebar for applying the humie-powered rear-wheel-drive. Most importantly it also has a brake – something that is actually absent from some of the China-made royal carriage models. This is a feature we considered to be very important; we’re both easily distracted and had visions of an unbraked carriage rolling backwards down a hill with Beanie letting out an alarmed “Whaaaaaaaaaa” from within.

Initially we had concerns that Beanie might not trust her new wheels, but we needn’t have worried; after a few stationary afternoon naps and a couple of biccie-assisted rolling tours of the house she was willing to try the carriage outside on a real walk.

She doesn’t need to use it every day, but we usually take it along with us so that she can hop in for a rest any time fatigue sets in. This is easy to recognize as she starts to drag her rear paws instead of cleanly lifting them.

Biggles and the pups don’t react when HRH The Beanster enters her carriage, other than being a bit jealous about the biccie used to lure her in, and Beanie herself seems totally happy about having the others trotting around her as she rolls along. The only downside seems to be that she feels a little vulnerable if she’s in the carriage when we encounter other dogs, but that’s diminishing as she learns to trust that we’ll keep any unknown woofers from getting too close.

I expected to be the subject of a little humor when we took the carriage out for its first spin – it’s not something you commonly see in our area – but most people we talked to were just interested in getting one for their own golden oldies. It’s certainly made a huge difference to The Beanster; no matter how long the walk, she can always finish it with fresh legs alongside the rest of the pack.

In keeping with my habit of taking formal portraits of the pups around birthdays, here’s the latest round of shots.

Poppy – whose birthday triggered this photoshoot – was very easy to photograph, and that’s mainly thanks to Beanie & Biggles; they’ve taught me that that it is most unwise to create any direct link between the click of the camera shutter and the giving of treats. Over the years they have sought ever higher modeling rates – eventually demanding biccie down-payments even before I got to take a single shot.

By contrast, Poppy and Monkey quietly and for the most part patiently followed my directions while I clicked away; only when I called them did they finally get rewarded.

Admittedly Monkey did spend the first couple of minutes walking behind the backdrop and knocking over my flash stands, but once he settled he was a pro.

Biggles was his usual biccie-demanding self, and being mostly deaf every woof came out at full volume. On top of that, he couldn’t understand my verbal directions. By the time we finished my ears were ringing and my pockets were empty of treats, but we got there.

Beanie was the hardest to photograph. The years are really catching up with her now, so instead of having to deal with an impatient and demanding spoilt princess, I had this little old lady that kept nodding off. My first round of shots had to be discarded because of the half-asleep look, so I redid the shoot at an earlier time the next day and got closer to the sparkle and inner light that I’ve always associated with my little girl.

Monkey is finally getting the hang of fetching a ball. He’s not 100% reliable by any means, but when he’s on form his goofiness makes up for all the failed retrievals!