On the next day of our holiday we all piled into the Beaglemobile for a trip to Glen Nevis. It’s a great place to visit on a hot sunny day; easy parking shaded by trees, with lots of sniffy walks among bluebells and mountains. And you’re never far from cooling streams if anybody gets too warm.

Oddly enough on this holiday it was Beanie who felt the heat most, even though she has much shorter and thinner fur than The Bigglet. Maybe Biggles’ thick white fur serves as a reflective insulator, keeping him cooler so long as he doesn’t start generating lots of heat with his muscles?

On the other hand, maybe Beanie was just the more animated of the two; certainly there was very little on the walk that didn’t get thoroughly investigated by the Beanster.

On our return to the Beaglemobile we hooked the pups up to the handle at the side door of our van. By happy coincidence this anchor point – coupled with the length of their leads – again allowed the pups to choose whether to be in the van with us or to lie on the grass outside munching on a cow ear. There was even enough free play for Biggles to nick my seat.

The final day of our break was a little cooler, allowing us to be a bit more active. We took the ferry to Ardnamurchan, and drove for an hour along the crazy single-track roads to reach “Camas nan Geall“.

I’d experienced driving around Ardnamurchan before in the car. Our campervan is of course a larger vehicle, but somehow the elevated driving position combined with automatic transmission made the journey easier. That said, it was still like playing a level of a nerve-shredding video game that goes on too long. You think Doom is intense? Try Ardnamuchan, BFG Edition. I was very happy finally to park up on the hill overlooking our coastal walk and have a soothing cuppa.

After that cuppa and a change of underpants I went a little way down the hill towards the start of our planned walk. Like most remote Scottish locations Ardnamurchan is infested by sheep. Susan had taken great care to find a route that would avoid any woolly encounters and I was keen to see if she’d succeeded. It looked like the walk itself was indeed sheep-free, but the 300m between our van and the start of the walk was a single-track sheep gauntlet. I returned to the van and delivered the bad news, and Susan started up the barbeque so we could consider our options over lunch. The barbecue certainly distracted Biggles from the sheep below us; once the smoke started flowing he sought shelter in the footwell by the driver’s seat. Only when our food was served up did he feel like emerging from his little cave.

I’m not frightened at all. But I’ll just stay here if you don’t mind.

It turns out silica gel dry packs make a decent headrest for smoke-averse Beagle boys.

After lunch we decided to brave the gauntlet. It was just a few hundred yards after all. How bad could it be? Well, amazingly, not bad at all. I’ll probably never know why some sheep send Biggles (mostly) and Beanie  into explosive aaarrrff mode while others just get ignored, but the sheep at Camas nan Geall fell into the latter category. On the way out there wasn’t even the slightest loss of composure from either of our Beagles and we were truly able to enjoy our walk along the distinctive – at some times almost alien – coastline.

H. R. Giger was here. And so were Beanie & Biggles.

On the return trip Biggles’ halo almost slipped, but a few well-timed biccies from Susan pulled him back from the brink and we made it through the gauntlet – only to discover that a group of sheep had wandered up close to the van. Again The Bigglet almost lost it, but recovered his composure without any aaarrffing episodes. We spent another hour or so at the same spot with sheep just yards away, and both Beanie and Biggles behaved themselves impeccably.

In the past I’ve always taken something like this as a sign that his Biggleship has finally overcome his problem with sheep. This time around I was smart enough just to be grateful for sheer dumb luck, but I do think that a few hour’s calm exposure to sheep must have done some good.

It’s not at all uncommon for our Beagles to pick things up when we’re out on a beach run and carry them for a while. I’m not talking about dead crabs, horse poo and such; obviously they get picked up, chomped and speed-swallowed as soon as they’re spotted. No, I’m talking about junk that’s either been dropped by humies or washed in by the tide; things that for some reason catch a Beagle’s eye, or nose, or both, and end up being transported along the beach in their jaws.

More than once Biggles has grabbed some piece of discarded crud and carried it proudly like it’s the find of the century. In due course the novelty wears off and the item is once again dumped, ready to be found by some other lucky woofer. The time required to go from”this is brilliant, best thing ever!” to “it’s crap, I dropped it” varies with the object in question. A soggy, burst tennis ball probably holds the household record for longest carry, notching up around 40 minutes in Biggles gob, but even this prized item lost its appeal by the end of the outing. Only one item has ever been so treasured as to be carried into the car, and this is its story.

We’d just finished our beach run, and I had Beanie & Biggles on short leashes as I attempted to steer them round the junk left by the people who like to park up and watch the sea while having their fast-food lunches. We successfully dodged two Big Mac cartons, assorted sand-covered dog poos and a partially consumed corn-on-the-cob (great for blockages, those), but unfortunately in avoiding these hazards I drifted close to a bin. In an instant Beanie was on tiptoes with her head stuck in the bin’s opening. Just as I moved to extract the Beanster one of the car-seated diners wound down his window and cast out a McFlurry tub. The guy who did this was parked barely two metres away from the bin that had Beanie’s head stuck in it, but still, I guess two metres of walking was just too big of an ask. Anyway, just as I got Beanie free of the bin, Biggles lunged forward and seized the tub.

I don’t know what manner of McFlurry had been in that tub, but judging by Biggles’ possessive body language, it must have been really good. If the tub had been dangerous I’d have taken it off him immediately, but in this case I figured the best course of action was to let him keep it until we’d got further away from the other junk. As we walked, Biggles periodically succumbed to the temptation to put his prize down and examine it, and on these occasions I tried to get my foot on it or quickly drag him away from it, but each time Biggles snatched his McFlurry back up off the pavement. There were still a hundred yards or so between us and our car, and we got a few laughs as Biggles trotted purposefully at my side, tightly clutching the icecream tub in his mouth. “Just ignore them Biggles,” I said, “they’re just jealous of your McFlurry”. And he did.

When we finally we arrived at our parking spot I lifted the tailgate and mentally prepared myself for what I call the “mucking about” phase of a Beagle outing. You see Beanie is always really good at leaping into the car and entering her crate, but Biggles is.. not. Usually I have to really work hard to get him to jump in, with excited countdowns and encouraging hand movements, and if all that fails (as it often does) I use my “emergency” biscuit to bribe him in. This time things were different. Just as Beanie was sinking down onto her rear legs ready to jump, Biggles shouldered her out of his way, leaped in without any preparation and went straight into his crate with his harness and lead still attached. I then had to pull him back out of the crate, and wrestle him out of his harness while still holding on to Beanie’s lead. This was not easy, because the hole in the neck area of the Euro Short Canicross harness is designed to slip over the dog’s head only, not head plus McFlurry tub.

With this done, I now had to deal with the McFlurry tub itself. I tried to simply take it off him, but my stubborn little boy was not having any of it. There was no growling, but no way was he going to let it go. Time for the emergency biscuit! I retrieved the biccie from my running pouch and broke it in two, giving Beanie her half first. Against expectations Biggles didn’t immediately drop his icecream tub in anticipation of the biccie, but I could see he was seriously conflicted. Not since Captain Kirk in the original series of Star Trek had anyone faced such a huge dilemma. I waved the biccie under his nose once, but the tub remained in his jaws. I waved it again, and his jaws slackened a little. On the third pass, the tub was released, and using my years of experience in sock trading with The Bigglet, I deftly snatched the tub while delivering the biscuit straight into his open mouth. One quick chomp and speed-swallow later he realized he’d been duped, but it was too late to do anything about it. Except to exact revenge in the form of a particularly vile fart as I drove us home.

A few less smelly parting shots from the last week…

Beanie gets to grips with a cow ear. These things are great: lower fat than pig ears and despite appearing less substantial, much longer lasting.

A discussion about who should have the sofa turns physical..

.. and noisy. Very noisy.

The day after losing his icecream tub, Biggles still has some emotional healing to do…