Spring has got off to an unusually warm and sunny start this year, and the pups have been trying out all the sunbathing spots on the new deck.

It took us a few days to work out where best to place blankies and beds to make the Beagle sunworshipping as comfortable as possible, but until we started getting it right, Daisy was quite happy to improvise.

Yeah, Monkey is basically Daisy’s portable heated cushion.

I still need to put railings on the stairs up to the deck, but this keeps getting delayed as we work to convert the building site at the rear of the house back into a patio that we and the pups can chill out on. In the midst of all that, Susan’s very busy getting all our veg and flowers ready to go into the ground.

With all this work to do, there are times when we need to keep Daisy and Monkey occupied at the bottom of the garden, so we’ve fallen into the habit of giving them lots of treats, particularly longer-lasting ones such as chicken feet, goat ears and various other animal parts. Given that they’re Beagles, distracting them with food should be super easy, and in Daisy’s case it is, but Monkey often presents a problem, well.. two problems to be more accurate.

Firstly there’s his complete inability to catch things, a failing he acquired from his mentor The Bigglet. When a treat is thrown for him, he just lets it hit the floor, then while he’s trying to work out where it landed, Daisy speed-eats her treat and swoops in to claim his. This  can be mitigated by not throwing the treat but instead putting it directly in his mouth. If it’s in his mouth he can’t possibly lose it, right? Wrong, because he’s Monkey.

If the treat in question is one he hasn’t encountered before, he can’t just eat it; he has to check it carefully to ensure that it’s not some new attempt at Monkeycide, and as he puts it on the ground to study it, Daisy nicks it.  Conversely if the treat is one he knows well and loves, he’s so filled with the joy of getting it that he has to play with it before consumption. Wagging furiously, he throws it in the air and pounces on it,  throws it again and pounces, then throws it one more time and.. Daisy nicks it.

When this happens he looks round at us with a pathetic, bewildered expression on his face that says “Mum, Dad, it’s happened again! Help!”. Instead of getting on with what we wanted to do, one of us now has to go back into the kitchen to get a replacement, by which time Daisy has finished snacking and is either getting under our feet or making us feel guilty for not getting her a second serving too. We called our boy Monkey, and a Monkey he is, but he’s also a Doofus.

Some more recent shots…

When Daisy’s losing at chases, she still cheats by hiding under our garden seat and ambushing The Monkster!

That first Spring grass-cut took a bit longer than expected.

‘Cos when the mower’s out, it’s the perfect time for wrestling and chases.




It turns out that Spring is the ideal time for gardening Beagles to prune bamboo.

And whatever was in this pot, well it ain’t there any more. But Daisy did it, Dad, honest!

Little Miss Innocent. Well, the “little” part is true at least.

I began the rebuild of our deck in January and now – almost at the end of March – it’s still not quite finished. But.. and this is a very important but.. it is sufficiently close to being finished that the pups can once again be let out into the garden to do what Beagles need to in gardens, off lead and without escort. Part of the underside of the deck still needs to be clad in wood to prevent Beagle access, railings are still needed on the steps, and there’s a mountain of rotten, rusty nail-covered timber from the old deck that still needs to go into the absurdly expensive 12 cubic yard skip we’ve ordered, but thanks to a few carefully arranged metal dog fencing panels everything is usable once again.

It was a big moment for me when Susan called Monkey and Daisy to the kitchen doors and let them out onto the new deck for the first time. Over the last three months I’d dismantled the old deck, put in 14 new support posts, driven concrete bolts into the side of the house, cut, carried and fixed around 50 lengths of 2×6, applied over 100 metres of joist tape, laid and screwed down decking boards, made brand new super-wide stairs and put together railings containing just short of 100 spindles.

My joints were aching, my eczema was rebelling after exposure to all that sawdust and my fingers were scarred from misbehaving screws and wood splinters, but I couldn’t wait to see how Monkey and Daisy would react to the restoration of this key part of their freedom and independence.

They both sprinted across the deck and down the steps to greet me, tails going like propellers. Monkey slammed his front paws into my groin to provide emergency braking, and as I doubled up from the impact Daisy made a play for my right hand pocket, which is where I tend to keep a supply of treats. I hugged them and kissed them, and then, once they were satisfied that I didn’t have any treats on me right at the moment, they took a look at their new facilities. Monkey crawled under the stairs and went up to the doggy fence panels, probing them for a way through to that big pile of dangerous old deck debris. Unable to find an obvious weakness, he backed up for a wider view, sat on his bum and had a thorough scratch of his big furry bonce; his body language was all “OK, this looks like a decent challenge but I will prevail!”. As for Daisy, well she went back up the stairs, sniffed the deck surface and began frantically scratching at a board. She’s only little, but when Daisy puts her front paws to work she can create a lot of damage in a short time, so Susan quickly grabbed her and then spotted the reason for this attempted act of vandalism. A small chip of red gravel had transferred itself from my boots the gap between two boards and Daisy wanted to be sure it wasn’t a biccie. Right there and then the first commandment for use of the new deck was written: “Thou halt not, under any circumstances, give out biccies on the deck, ‘cos they’re bound to fall through the cracks and cause little Miss Kindling-Maker to go into action”.

Ungrateful little buggers, both of them! Or to put it another way: Beagles, both of them!  I did have a big grin on my face the next morning when I let them out though; they went to the top of the stairs then sat side by side for a moment, and that moment said “we’ve got it back, this is ours!”. Instantly all that blood, sweat and instructional Youtube video watching was rendered worthwhile. I don’t have any photos of the (almost) finished deck to show because as I said, there’s still Trash Mountain right next to it, but I do have these:

It only cost a quid but this soggy, mucky crinkly green frog is THE best chase toy ever created!




Monkey poses by the Hazel tree that Poppy pruned almost to destruction. It’s making a great recovery but now Daisy is showing interest in nibbling it. Girl Beagles! Who’d ‘ave ’em!


Apparently girl Beagles also like destroying watering can roses.

And Daisy’s spent so much time..


honing her..


Beagle Judo skills..


.. that she can now wrestle a 20kg hulking Monkulus to the ground!


She’s also fast enough and smart enough to test him during chases!


But my big boy still has an extra gear when really needs it!


And if that doggy fence around the old deck timbers has a weakness, The Monkster will find it!


I’m glad my work on the deck is almost at an end, but I will miss looking over my shoulder and seeing my two little spectators peering at me over the barriers :)

Daisy is now one year old! That makes her officially a big girl, even though she still looks like a titch – especially when she’s viewed alongside The Monkulus.

She still embarrasses us on walks by squeaking and throwing herself onto her side when she wants to meet another dog or humie, and that combined with her compact proportions often cause her to be mistaken for a very young pup. I suspect that will continue for some time to come; Beanie was still getting mistaken for a pup at 14 years old! Interestingly, the same people who say “Aww, is that a new puppy?” often also say “and is that the Mum?” in reference to Monkey, even though he’s still in full possession of his male naughty bits.

It might be wishful thinking, but I see elements of all three of our other Beagles in Daisy. Like Poppy, she’s an incredibly cuddly little girl who will happily lie on her back in our arms while we tickle her tummy, and if she wants to go through a doorway, she’s so small and fast that it’s almost impossible to stop her – another Poppy trait. Leave your cup unguarded for a second and Daisy’s snout will be in it, slurping up the remains just as Beanie used to do, and she’ll shamelessly vacuum up crumbs off our clothes like Beanie too. Despite never meeting Biggles, Daisy has inherited the role of Chief Gobhead from him; it’s common to see her perched on the sofa by the window, laying down the law to binmen, delivery folk and any neighbor who has the temerity to take their own dog for a walk. In fact she’s such a vocal little girl I often imagine her as a Beagle drill-rapper called “DayZee”, telling it how it is on the street in London and Chicago. In recent weeks she’s taken to boinging at mealtimes – another Biggles speciality – though her small stature prevents her from being a headbutt risk.

In some ways Daisy’s a very cheeky and forceful little girl; if she wants to probe your pockets, be prepared to push her away quite firmly ten or more times before she gets the “no” message, and at many points in each day Monkey follows her lead, not the other way about. For all that, she can also be remarkably biddable. I guess what I’m saying here is that she’s a spoiled little madam who knows that in order to get away with the more outrageous and demanding stuff, she has to do the cute and adorable stuff too. That again is classic Beanie, and I’m a sucker for it!

Some more recent shots:

A birthday pupcake for our little big girl
And of course there’s one for Monkey as well!

Monkey lets Daisy have the driving seat for most things, but not toys! He claimed first dibs on the squeaky lion that was intended for Daisy.

But then the green dinosaur caught his eye, and a swap was arranged.

Spring is nearly here…

The daffodils are showing…

And the new deck is finally approaching completion…

..though Monkey and Daisy are pretty sure it’s still missing a major component, like a surface to walk on!

Monkey’s fetch skills are undiminished despite several months of neglect

Now that Daisy’s officially a big girl, maybe she can learn fetch too!