What bounces like a soggy tennis ball, smells like a fish and looks like a poo gone wrong? Answer: the “cake” I made for Biggles’ sixth birthday.

I’ve always been a crap cook, but it seems I’m even worse at baking. I don’t even know where I went wrong. I had two world-leading experts in bakery consumption check my preparations at every stage, and they gave their seal of approval every time. In fact they would have been quite happy to have the cake even before I flung it in the microwave and nuked it (and isn’t that how all the best baking is done?)

Sardines, an egg and some flour. How hard can this baking thing be?

Please can I have it now Dad? Please?

Let me have a quick taste Dad. Just one small lick, I promise.

In fact when we had the ritual bowl lick-out while the microwave was running, I had a bit of a struggle preventing the Birthday Boy from running off with it into the garden. And yet, despite all these promising signs, the actual cake ended up looking like a sickly Labrador poo with a cowpat stuck on top. Fortunately that’s exactly the kind of thing Beanie & Biggles love to eat, so it went down rather well.

Another thing that went down well was Biggles’ birthday present. Meet Ally, a two-and-a-half foot long cuddly alligator with an incredible 16 squeakers and – just like a real alligator – a rattler in his head.

Ally is quickly unwrapped..

And after a tentative first examination, play begins!

Is Biggles actually trying to impersonate his new toy?

He must be, because that’s definitely the “death roll” he’s doing there.

So it looks like Ally’s a big hit with my boy, good enough to rival the squeaky monkey he got for his last birthday. The same unfortunately cannot be said for Beanie’s “unbirthday” present. If you’ve seen those crinkly, squeaky “Noah” owl toys in your local supermarket and wondered just how tough they are, wonder no more.

Beanie means business – this owl is in for a testing time

Two minutes into play. Already there’s a rip and the white stuff is being extracted..

Looks like nurse Beanie has lost another patient. But at least she’s harvesting the viable organs for a possible transplant.

That’s the squeaker accounted for; now it’s time to deal with the crinkly stuff – just like the crisp packets that Beanie likes tearing up!

Almost done..

The owl’s toast and Beanie’s just getting warmed up! Never mind Beanie, you can always have another slice of my poo cake

The blackberries have put in an early appearance this year, and they’re a welcome addition to our walks by the local farms. Beanie & Biggles were the first to spot them this time around; in previous years it was up to me to detect and introduce this tasty mid-walk snack, but I think those ever-active Beagle noses have finally become attuned to the scent of the berries. Certainly the first I knew of the berries was when Beanie got interested in a hedge and went into her surprisingly refined and delicate picking routine.

The berries may be here, but only a few of them have ripened and assumed the dark color that gives them their name. Beanie’s smart enough to hunt down only the ripe ones, but Biggles is less discerning.

I don’t know if he actually likes the taste of the unripe ones, or whether his stomach simply has more say in the matter than his tastebuds, but he’ll happily stand there munching away until I convince him to get on with the walk. And when we finally get back home there’s even more munching to be done, because it’s time for breakfast!

I’m sure other dogs get excited about their breakfasts, but I can’t believe that any of them get quite as excited as The Bigglet. He woofs, he howls, and his rear-end wags so much that he can’t keep his bum still in a sit no matter how hard he tries. I guess he really believes the old adage that “breakfast is the most important meal of the day”. When he gets it he always, and I do mean always, insists on spilling some of it on the floor. Susan and I have often pondered what’s going through his head when he does that. I’m convinced it’s a celebration, like someone throwing a bundle of cash in the air. Regardless, it’s not a particularly wise thing to do because Beanie eats more efficiently, finishes first and goes after his stray kibble. Even worse, the odd piece of kibble sometimes goes under the hall table and I have to recover it before Beanie digs up the flooring in her bid to get at it. But Biggles never seems to mind, he’s just so happy that it’s breakfast time.

That’s the great thing about my optimistic little boy; he ignores all the little knock-backs in life and rejoices in every single good thing that comes his way, even if it’s a routine event. That’s a good way to be! And on the 28th of the month, when it’s his sixth birthday, he’s going to have seventeen new reasons to rejoice, sixteen of which squeak. I wonder how much his bum will wag then?

Biggles is going to be six years old later this month, and it seems he’s come down with an affliction that often hits nearly-birthday-boys: rascalitis. Unfortunately there’s no cure for this disease; all a vet could do is confirm the diagnosis, but let’s face it, the symptoms are unmistakeable:

• Mischievously nicking a bit of kibble out of his bowl at mealtimes even when he’s been told to “leave it”
• Cheekily barging into his sister Beanie so roughly that she’s literally knocked off her feet, even though he knows she’s probably going to bite his bum in retaliation
• Decorating our bedroom with the contents of my sock drawer
• Drinking my post-training milkshake and doing a sloppy job of hiding the evidence (I found the empty glass on his bed)
• Hogging Beanie’s special “cave bed”, forcing me to keep covering her with a blanky every two minutes.
• Playing a game of “chicken” with me and winning

That last one happened this morning during our beach run, right at the end of the offlead section. For once they’d both behaved impeccably, running off for a quick romp when I told them, but then returning unbidden just as quickly for a taste of chicken. In fact if anything, I’d have been happy for them to do a bit more sprinting about, but Beanie seemed a bit low on gas, which I attributed to the high intensity knicker workout she’d had earlier in the day.

As they returned to me after what should have been the final sortie, I followed my usual practice of getting Beanie back on lead first. You see Beanie is the “Batman” in our little dynamic duo; get her under control and “Robin” will follow suit. Those are the rules. Or at least those were the rules until Biggles suddenly found the courage to run off on his own before I could nab him. He ran straight to a trail of hoof prints in the sand, followed it for about 150 yards, then stopped and turned to look right at me. Without thinking I ran after him, and Biggles held his position until Beanie and I got within a couple of metres, at which point he sprinted off on the horse trail again.

I regained my senses and played it a bit smarter. Along with Beanie, I started running in the opposite direction to The Bigglet. I kept glancing over my shoulder as I ran, and I saw him stop and lay down, facing me. This is Biggles’ version of the game of “chicken”, and in the past I’ve always won it just by keeping going in the opposite direction. This time however the distance at which Biggles normally concedes defeat came and went. I saw  him shrink from a recognizable lump of Beagle boy to a distant and tiny dot on the beach. I stopped before he fell from sight completely, turned and watched for any movement. Although there was no way to tell, I felt sure that my cheeky little boy was looking right back at me, probably wagging his tail.

It was decision time; I could run further away, but in doing so risk losing track of him altogether, or concede defeat and run towards him, hopefully catching him somehow before we ran out of beach. Well that first option held no appeal, because unlike Beanie, The Bigglet is spectacularly hopeless at tracking. Seriously he must be the most nasally inept Beagle in the United Kingdom. He’s the only dog I know that follows tracks in the wrong direction, and if he had to rely on his nose to get back to us, he’d get lost and get himself into big trouble. So, in reality there was no decision to make. Beanie and I started back towards him.

Once again he held his ground as we got closer, and I could see him bracing himself for another sprint away. I came to a halt just before he legged it, and played my final card. I put Beanie in a sit and began feeding her my emergency reserve of chicken. Glancing over at my boy I could see the internal conflict etched on his face – carry on playing the game with dad, or just get the chicken? The chicken won, and he shamelessly jogged over to me with a big grin on his face. Needless to say I attached his lead before any chicken made it into his mouth.

So although Biggles won the game of “chicken”, as a well as a few lumps of actual chicken, I feel that I won the engagement overall. Next time however could be different. Biggles is a stubborn and cheeky little bugger at the best of times, but when he’s infected with Rascalitis, he’s a nightmare.