The weather’s turning wintery and both Beanie & Biggles have decided to jettison their warm-weather romper suits. Now I know that Beagles are only relatively small dogs with short hair but let me tell you, their discarded fur is everywhere.

Not so long ago we bought a new vacuum cleaner – one of those extra powerful German things that actually has a power dial on it so you can decide whether or not to leave the floorboards in place. It’s still new enough that I get a slight “new gadget buzz” every time I use it (sad, I know, but that’s me) and consequently the vacuuming gets done pretty frequently. Despite this, little Beagle furballs are still collecting under the radiators and behind the doors. There’s a coating of Beagle hairs on the sofa, on the TV, on all the air intake grills of my main computer, on the insides of my trainers, and on my camera gear (and I’m very picky about keeping that clean). If I blow my nose into a hanky and examine the result, I’ll more than likely find a Beagle hair in there. This is easily the worst shedding we’ve ever had, and the reason it’s so bad is that our two rascals are playing like fuel-injected puppies.

Look carefully and you can actually see the fur flying in this shot!

I don’t know what’s behind it, but two or three times a day now they’ll launch into noisy, room-shaking, stunt-filled play sessions the likes of which we haven’t seen for three years. Quite often it’s Beanie who starts it. One minute she’ll be quietly snoozing in her special cave-like bed (which we now call simply The Abode), then suddenly and for no obvious reason she’ll emerge, trot straight over to Biggles and gently but purposefully paw-swipe his face. Two seconds later it’s bedlam.

Biggles initiates some of the sessions too. The first warning sign is his tail – it gets rigid yet quivery as he catches Beanie’s gaze (I call it “tremble-tail”), then he draws back onto his rear legs like he’s about to pounce on a smelly sock, and off we go again.

It’s extremely entertaining if you’re in the mood for it; Biggles takes off on a mad sprint out of the living room and down the corridor. Beanie cold-jumps straight over the sofa to give chase – letting off a piercing hunting cry as she goes – then suddenly they both come barreling back into the room for a friendly punch up, knocking over drinks and sending remote controls flying. Anything that gets caught in the crossfire – a blanket, a magazine, the mail – gets used as a tug toy and destroyed.

The other day Susan came in from making a coffee to find them munching their way through one of our rubbery exercise mats. Beanie paused briefly to acknowledge her Mum, but there was no expression of guilt or remorse, just a look that basically said “well, Mum, you know how it is. The mat was just there, so we did it. Some people climb mountains. Some people run marathons. We do this..”

The play is lot more balanced than it used to be, and more affectionate too. Sometimes they’re rolling around together and they just stop for a moment to savor the furry cuddle in which they’ve accidentally landed. It’s a joy to behold if you’re not trying to watch the TV, or have a conversation, answer the phone, or hear yourself think. There are times however when a semblance of order and peace has to be restored, and at these times we either give them a short cool-down period in their crates, or send them both out into the garden. The last thing I want to do is discourage them from playing, but if this continues at it’s current level I’m going to need ear-plugs for use in my own living room, and nose-plugs to stop fur-induced sneezes!

Halloween has come round again, and our two little horrors have been very busy.

On the beach, they proved their hunting ability by catching a goat. Yes, a goat! The goat was long dead of course, in fact it was basically just an empty skeleton with a partial covering of skin and fur. And when I say they caught it, I really mean they stumbled across it despite me seeing it first and doing my best to give it a wide berth. I got Beanie away from it pretty quickly, but Biggles dug in his heels and threw himself on his back for a bit of intense Beagle break-dancing. Happily time at sea had severely weakened the corpse’s pong-potential, and any delicate fragrance of death that Biggles did manage to absorb was quickly washed off by a few sprints through the surf. Certainly by the time we got back to the car he only smelled of wet salty dog and seaweed, and only minimal cleanup of the car was needed when we got back home.

Not having to purge the car of essence de corpse was a welcome time-saver, but instead of cleaning and spraying, I’m going to be sewing. The reason for this? In a word, Beanie!

Specifically, Beanie has given me a bad case of Beagle Pocket Syndrome. You know you’ve got BPS when you confidently put your car keys in your pocket, only to have them fall down your leg and hit the ground a couple of steps later. In fact I’ve got BPS so bad that only two pairs of trousers actually have a complete set of un-holed pockets. I know the Beanster’s to blame because lately she’s been coming in to see me when I have a shower. At first I assumed this was a display of affection, her way of saying thank you for all those play sessions and runs on the beach. In reality she just wanted me safely locked away in the shower cubicle so that she could nibble through the pockets of my clothes undisturbed.

In a way it’s my own fault because I always like to have an emergency dog biccie in my pocket. Historically this habit has been a source of embarrassment at the gym – whenever I do any kind of inversion exercise a biccie and a poo bag tend to fall out of my pants. Now I don’t have that problem because nothing stays in my pockets long enough to make it out of the house.

By a spooky coincidence Susan has BPS too, but in her case the naughty nibbling has occurred mainly in her jackets. The solution is simple enough: repair the pockets, then either stop putting edibles in them or make sure that clothing with pockets is never left unattended and in reach of a wiggly Beagle. The thing is, the list of things that must be kept strictly out of Beagle reach just keeps growing and growing. Cups, socks, trousers, jackets, mail, shopping bags, toilet rolls, masking tape, sandpaper, CDs… Maybe I could swap Beanie & Biggles for a pair of Joe Dante’s Gremlins. They’d be so much less hassle. Avoid bright light and water and never feed after midnight? Easy!

Beanie had her seventh birthday at the weekend, which is kind of amazing on three counts:

1. She’s a suicide machine on legs. Beanie’s eaten scores of things she shouldn’t, including soft plastic that turned sharp and rigid in her gut, whole packs of sausages (still wrapped), toxic palm oil washed up on the beach, and somehow, a cats claw. These items were all extracted from her via surgery and induced vomiting, and incredibly, she’s still here. But swallowing inappropriate things is only one way to get oneself killed, and Beanie’s tried other approaches, like chomping through a laptop power cable, attempting to dive off a high harbour wall to grab a seagull, and unhooking her lead for a three hour solo romp around a mist-covered mountain. How the hell has she made it to seven?
2. I simply cannot believe how fast the time has passed. She was barely two years old when we moved to our current home in Ayrshire, and it doesn’t feel like we’ve been here for five years. Where has all that time gone?
3. Lots of people meeting her for the first time still think she’s a pup because she’s so wiggly, waggy and full of life!

If anything, Beanie’s become even more puppy-like over the last few months. Susan and I have changed our fitness training this last year, and now most of my running is done with the dynamic duo. That’s meant they’ve been getting 3-4 longish runs on the beach per week, each with a short off-lead section to allow them to get even more dynamic. By the way, when I say “short” off-lead section, I mean that’s always the intention, but sometimes the furballs have other ideas. Regardless, they’ve been getting fitter and that’s raised their energy levels. In addition, the decision to shift our main business from software (stress!) to photography and websites has made me more relaxed, and there’ve been more impromptu play sessions to break up the day.  The upshot of all this is that Beanie & Biggles are playing together more, and “mad hour” has been reinstated. In her very first year with us, mad hour involved Beanie sprinting endlessly round the sofa. Six years later, mad hour now means grabbing various objects and excitedly parading them all round the house until someone engages her in a game of tug.

Anyway, getting back to her ladyship’s birthday, it began with an early-morning hop into our bed for a cuddle, during the course of which Biggles decided to mark the sheets with a little fragrant juice from his anal glands (thanks Biggles, but all things considered I’d rather just stick with your farts). Then we took a trip out to a brand new local Pets At Home store to purchase some exotic edibles.

Understandably we spent quite a while in the mix and match biscuit aisle

Beanie discovered that although the store is new, biscuit leakage down the back of the shelves has still occurred. She was happy to provide cleanup services for free however.

And the staff should note that the lids on the biscuit containers aren’t very secure…

After due consideration, we emerged from the store with a medium sized box of dried tripe.  I opened it in the car park and immediately my nose was hit by the stench of a crusty old dog poo that’s been out in the sun too long. Revolting stuff. Beanie and Biggles loved it!

Of course when it’s your birthday, there has to be a birthday toy. Meet the bandit-mask-wearing “suspicious chicken”:

I selected the chicken after carefully reading through scores of reviews on both the UK and US versions of Amazon. The consensus was that it was deceptively tough and a particularly good choice for dogs that like to shake their toys. Beanie has always enjoyed a good shake, so I gave it a go. On first inspection I have to say I was quite disappointed; from the description I was expecting it to be only lightly filled with stuffing and very floppy, but in the flesh it was chunky with only the wings and legs able to flap about. However, I’m happy to report that once Beanie got hold of it, she loved giving it an Olympic-level shaking and it held together really well.

In fact she shook that chicken so much she almost gave herself a black eye!

I don’t think the stitching would survive a tug session for very long though, and the wings seem to invite intense chewing. So it’s not perfect, but it made my little girl happy, and gave me a break from repeatedly re-stitching the limbs onto her bottle-filled green monkey.

As for the Unbirthday boy, well his toys are still going strong so I got him a chicken-flavored nylabone chew instead. It always takes him a while to get started on a new chew; I have to entice him to take that first chomp then hold it for him for a few minutes, but then he’ll grind away at it quite happily for a while. However, this time around the chewing got interrupted by a sudden desire to have a sexy roll on the carpet with it. I’ve no idea what strange Biggly thought process led to that, and frankly, I think I’m better off not knowing.  Still, I think everybody had a good time on Beanie’s special day!