Frustration-Free Packaging

Posted on January 18, 2016 by Paul

Every now and then our Beagles find themselves at a bit of loose end. Biggles usually resolves this by hunting round the house looking for things to grab. Almost anything will do: clothing (socks preferred of course), packaging, Beanie’s Christmas jumper, even a common blanket. For Beanie – even though she’s now a mature 8 year old lady Beagle – the best way to cure the loose-end blues is always a bit of wanton destruction.

What you see above are the closing stages of a frenzied attack on a (thankfully empty) Amazon box. Very often when we buy something from Amazon they follow up with a pesky email asking us to rate their packaging: was it an appropriate size? did it protect its contents adequately? Never once do they think to ask “did it entertain your Beagle for at least two minutes?” And yet on this occasion it did, which is pretty impressive when you consider that it was the free delivery option.

Equally impressive is that today – only seventeen days into the New year – we had our first Beagle-related scare. It happened in Culzean Country Park while we were walking a section of the Ayrshire Coastal path. It was one of those classic Scottish winter days that only briefly achieved anything worth describing as “daylight”, and once the sun had set somewhere behind all the heavy grey clouds, darkness fell very quickly. Even in winter the dark brings out all kinds of unseen critters, and their scents soon put our Beagles into baying frenzies. I reeled in their leads – for safety, ironically – and as I did so Biggles lunged forward, ripping the handle out of my hand. He took off after a scent with his lead bouncing on the ground behind him; armed with a hand torch, I took off right after him.

We were on a winding woodland path and within just a few seconds I’d lost him. To make matters worse, for the first time in his life Biggles wasn’t baying his head off as he chased his prey. I rounded a corner and was hugely relieved to catch sight of him again. He had his nose hard to the ground and wasn’t moving particularly fast, so I quickened my pace thinking that I could grab his lead. He immediately responded by speeding up, and I realized my best chance of catching him was now to ditch my heavy backpack so I could go at a full sprint. I lost vital seconds fumbling with the straps, and when I finally got moving, I’d lost him completely. I tried to listen for his footfalls and the sound of his lead banging on the path, but any noise he was making was drowned out by Beanie; now some distance behind me, she was baying at full volume as she tried desperately to escape Susan’s grasp and join the chase.

I ran on along the trail as fast as I could until I reached a crossroads. I stopped and listened hard, but again I struggled to hear anything above Beanie’s wailing and my own labored breathing. Which way had Biggles gone? Was he even on a path anymore? Suddenly, and before I’d come to a decision about what to do next, there was a loud rustling noise from behind a nearby bush, and Biggles appeared. He was looking quite distressed and sprinted right to me the instant he saw me. He was clearly relieved when I got hold of him (though not nearly as relieved as I was) and I got the feeling that he hadn’t particularly enjoyed his brief experience of unplanned freedom. In retrospect we think it took him a while to realize he was running free and without the support of his pack; once he did, he got scared and wanted to be reunited with us as quickly as possible. All things considered, we were lucky that it was Biggles who escaped. If it had been Beanie, we’d probably still be out there waiting for her to come back!

I’ll finish this post with a few shots from another walk – on a much brighter day – that didn’t have any Beagle-related dramas.

Festive Season 2015: Wet, Windy & Action-Packed

Posted on January 1, 2016 by Paul

I’m starting to wonder if Beanie & Biggles have some strange new illness that has halted production of the Beagle naughty hormone. We’ve just come through almost the whole Christmas season without any notable bad behavior. I mean obviously our two are still unruly enough that any regular dog owner would hand them over to a rehoming center, but for Beagles they’ve been almost angelic.

Early one morning the pups made their way up Castle Hill above Largs, where they saw the sun rise, snatched biccies from the top of a small but surprisingly challenging cairn, and inexplicably failed to woof at a group of distant cows (even though woofing would have attracted the cows and brought the walk to an abrupt end).

Beanie & Biggles were similarly quiet when they journeyed by ferry over to the island of Cumbrae. We endured so much wind and rain on Cumbrae that we spent the return trip in the ferry’s interior passenger compartment. Ordinarily – rough weather or not – we avoid such small, confined places due to the ever-present risk of hearing damage from his Biggleship’s 120 decibel woofer. Fortunately this time he saw no other dogs, no cyclists, and no-one wearing a hat that isn’t on the list of Beagle-approved head-wear, and so remained silent throughout. In fact he and Beanie were so well-behaved that the other passengers barely noticed them sticking their snouts into every shopping bag sitting unguarded on the floor as we prepared to disembark.

Even when we ventured up The Merrick – one of Dumfries and Galloway’s most popular hills and site of Beanie’s best solo off lead adventure ever – both Beanie & her brother passed up multiple opportunities for major naughtiness. That was one seriously rough walk; we went up the morning before storm “Frank” was due to hit the West of Scotland. The weather forecast had indicated the gales wouldn’t start until some hours after our descent, but just like a kid that couldn’t wait to open his presents, Frankie-boy started early. The trudge back down was a nightmare of high winds, low visibility and slippery mud – exactly the conditions in which a coordinated Beagle pulling frenzy would have dumped me unceremoniously and painfully onto my bum. And yet there was scarcely any pulling. No-one even thought to unhook their lead and go for a three-hour romp with the sheep and deer, although to be fair this would have been somewhat difficult to accomplish due to the half roll of Duck Tape I’d wound round and round the release clips.

Yes it looked calm enough at the start of the walk…

But storm Frank came out to play almost immediately after I took this pano

Christmas day itself was also trouble-free. Admittedly at one point Biggles did steal his sister’s Christmas jumper and roll about with it on the rug making X-rated sexual pleasure noises. And there was that time – about an hour after having the doggy version of our Christmas dinner – that his lordship had a brief but noisy bout of “stress flatulence” while jumping on to the sofa next to me. But neither of those incidents are naughty by any recognized Beagle standards.

His..

.. and her Christmas jumpers, served up with our pups’ most popular and long-lived treat dispensing toys

This morning Beanie & Biggles had their first beach run of 2016, and unusually they had to share the beach with a load of other doggies whose owner’s had likewise decided to welcome in the New Year by braving the cold and wind. A busy beach isn’t the best place to let our crazy Beagles off lead, but everybody else seemed to be having such fun that I couldn’t deprive my two of a chance to do the same.

Amazingly, from the second I released them to the moment I clipped them back onto their extending leads, they behaved themselves brilliantly. They chased around at full speed, never getting more than 100 yards from me and my ever-ready supply of chicken, and responded to all of my commands. For those blissful few minutes of off-lead joy they were just like other dogs, albeit dogs that felt an unusually strong need to roll in the disgusting remains of a seagull and consume half their body weight in crabs and shellfish deposited by the receding tide.

Does all this good behavior mark the start of a new era in our lives with Beanie & Biggles? Is there such a thing as a naughty-suppressant virus? Or is it just the calm before the storm? And if there is a storm of naughtiness coming, will it have a more inspired name than “Frank”? Only Beanie knows, and she’s not telling.

PIB: Politically Incorrect Beagle

Posted on December 19, 2015 by Paul

A couple of weeks ago the stormy weather was swapped for a cold snap. We used this brief respite from gales and driving rain to check out another local walk that we’d so far ignored: Kildoon Hill, near Maybole.

The route started out in the town, and ordinarily this would have given Beanie & Biggles plenty of chances to sample the discarded food wrappings left over from the previous evening; on this morning however the litter was proving very difficult to free from the icy pavement, and our two furry roadsweepers had to make do with a couple of frozen poos (poosicles, as I call them).

It was so cold that even the local doggy water station was out of commission

After a little while we left the town and headed out into the Ayrshire countryside, getting our first proper look at Kildoon Hill and its distinctive monument.

Just before we turned off the road onto the path up the hill, we encountered something I’d never seen in a rural setting before: pigs. There were only two of them, and they had to share their field with a load of sheep, but they each had their own personal abodes which more than anything else resembled big dog kennels.

At first our two didn’t know what to make of these creatures, and quietly sniffed away while the pigs themselves trotted over to take a look at us. It was kind of fitting that Biggles should finally meet a pig; ever since he was a pup we’ve jokingly referred to him as “Bigglet Pigglet” because of the grunting and squealing noises he makes when he picks up a scent and gets excited. He didn’t do any pig impressions this time however, and he only managed a half-hearted woofing once he was sure that the fence would protect him.

The “climb” up the hill was very gentle, but sadly we were denied the chance to reach the summit and check out the monument due to a herd of cows. While sheep are pesky and get Beanie & Biggles worked up, they do at least scarper once Beanie unleashes her hunting voice. Cows on the other hand are a very different matter. In fact, cows are officially the most lethal animals in the British Isles. It’s kind of a statement about Britain that while other countries have iconic, vicious predators like alligators, lions, and deadly spiders and snakes, we’ve just got herds of surly burgers-on-legs.

Still, by dodging the field full of cows were able to rejoin the circular route without skipping too much of it. The only other hazards we encountered from that point on were prickly gorse bushes, marshy fields and a stile or two. By the time we reached the town, everything was thawing and Beanie was finally able to help herself to a discarded paper napkin soaked in finest Maybole street gravy.

This may not be the most elegant way to get a Beagle over a stile, but it works.

The break in the weather continued for a day or two, but on the morning I was due to give the pups a run on the beach we were back to battling against 40mph+ winds and near-horizontal rain. Beanie & Biggles enjoyed it as usual (windy weather is always fun if you’re a Beagle) but I was much less enthusiastic about the return of the stormy stuff.

Having loaded the pups into their car crates after the run, I collapsed into the driver’s seat and sat for a couple of minutes until I could summon up enough energy to buckle up and drive us back home. While I was still recovering, a small bus parked up next us. It belonged to an excellent little charity that gives mentally disabled kids and adults regular outings, but boy had they chosen the wrong day for a trip to the seaside. Not only were the occupants of the bus about to get soaked and sandblasted by the weather, they were also going to get a double Beagle arrffing of biblical proportions. The very instant one of the visitors exited the bus, our car erupted with howls of Beagle protest and alarm.

Scientists have established that dogs are very good at recognizing human faces, and it stands to reason that they’ll also spot when a person’s expression is somewhat different from the norm. Unfortunately while many dogs choose not make a song and dance about it, certain dogs – specifically Beagles called Beanie & Biggles – like to shout the place down and get so agitated that the car they’re in starts to rock on its suspension.

Now thoroughly embarrassed as well as knackered, I started the engine and made as quick an exit as I could, with my two PIBs still howling away in the back.