Our Beagle adventures
Beanie had her third swimming lesson today at the Pets A&E in Glasgow. This time she did 23 laps! (OK, so the pool isn’t much bigger than the average bath tub). We thought they’d let her swim without her life jacket today as she’d been swimming unaided in the river last week. But the therapist thought it best to give her the added confidence for one more week.
She clearly got a good workout because she spent the rest of the day like this….
“Wake me up when tea’s ready”
[Note: when the above slide show stops, click the close box in the top right to start it again!]
There was a huge turnout for the racing today, and it was accompanied by gloriously hot, sunny weather. In fact the afternoon sun was so hot that a hose was set up – so owners could give their dogs a cooling shower between races. Even then some dogs had to retire early!
It was a great day for Beanie. She ran hard…
…and came second in both of her heats, just losing out each time to race veteran and powerhouse Sam. Here’s a clip of one of her heats:
(If the video doesn’t play, try clicking here)
She made it through to the final, where she had to compete against not only Sam, but the other two speed kings Murphy and Milo. The three boys ran a very close, fast race but Murphy had the edge and claimed the crown. Beanie came in last, but there’s no shame in that – she was up against the (current) three fastest Beagles in the club after all!
Victory clearly tastes sweet for Murphy!
Our friends Kathleen and Neil entered 5 of their Beagles this time. One of them bagged a rosette for winning the consolation race – and it was his first ever time at the racing! I think he could do very well in the coming weeks.
Once the serious racing was over, there was the traditional all-together “fun” run. With so many Beagles (and one cuddly Tibetan Terrier) on the start line, video was the only way to go:
(If the video doesn’t play, try clicking here)
Sam came in first, followed by Murphy. Beanie came in third – another great result for our little pup. When I stopped filming and went to catch her, I had trouble finding her amidst all the other Beagles. Then I spotted Sam and Murphy having a tug of war with the lure (just ‘cos it’s stopped moving doesn’t mean it’s dead!), and there she was, trying to grab her own piece of the prey. She’s definitely got the racing bug, big time!
I took a lot of shots of the racing and the fun dog show afterwards. There’s no room to post them all up here, so instead I put some of the better ones in a slideshow at the top of this post. If your dog’s in there and you’d like a full size copy of a piccie, or a full quality copy of either of the vids, please just drop me a line at BeanieTheBeagle@googlemail.com!
Yesterday afternoon we met up with Kathleen MacDonald in the park. She didn’t have any of her Beagles with her, but she had the next best thing: Dillon. Beanie and Dillon had a thoroughly good romp around the park for a couple of hours while we chatted.
Afternoons are normally Beanie’s nap time (actually any time that doesn’t involve eating or running around like a maniac is nap time) and I have to say there were moments when Dillon seemed to have exhausted her batteries.
But still, they had a great time together!
While the dogs were playing the conversation naturally wandered onto good places for dog walks. The beaches at Irvine and Troon were mentioned, and this morning we decided to give Irvine a try.
We had taken Beanie to Irvine once before. Unfortunately that visit had been at the weekend, and it was way too busy to risk letting Beanie off lead. This morning however the beach was almost deserted – even though the weather was superb – so we unclipped her lead almost immediately.
She quickly found a friend to play with, and although Beanie’s no slouch when it comes to running, she had trouble keeping up with this long legged athlete.
We must have walked for miles along the beach, just enjoying the sun, sea, and silly puppy antics.
On the way back we ran into a fun loving pointer called Tor…
… and a gentle labrador-staffie cross whose name unfortunately we didn’t get.
We may not have got the dog’s name, but Beanie certainly got a bite of his or her bottom!
Hmmm lip-licking tasty!
If the beach is always so quiet on a weekday morning – and the lab-cross owner indicated that it usually is – you can bet we’ll be going back there pretty soon!