Last week – for the first time 18 years of being Beagle carers – we had to skip walkies because of heat. In the past we’ve always found ways to let the pups safely have their walk even on the hottest days. We’ve shifted our times, used cooling jackets, gone wading at the beach and found shaded, cool woodland trails – but on Thursday the heat was so overwhelming that the only safe thing to do was stay home. Living on the west coast of Scotland we got a much shorter, milder version of the heatwave that swept through europe and our temperatures topped out at just over 30c, but that still felt bad enough.

To help our furries get through it we gave them multiple servings of meat-flavoured ice cubes and food-filled frozen kongs. This was Daisy’s first ever encounter with a kong; as soon as I held it out to her she grabbed it and ran off into the garden, but then we observed an interesting bit of role reversal between her and Monkey. The Monkster – who is typically wary of anything unusual – settled straight down and began licking; he’d encountered a kong before, subjected it to a battery of rigorous scientific analytical tests, and come to the conclusion that it was not a Monkeycide attempt. It was safe, and knew what to do with it. Daisy however was completely flummoxed, and while I doubt she had any fear of it, she didn’t see the point in it, because contained no food she immediately access. She sat down with it and scratched her head, then looked across at Monkey; he was holding his kong firmly between his paws, licking away at it and apparently thoroughly enjoying it.

It only took a few seconds of observation before the penny dropped and Daisy knew what she had to do: she had to nick Monkey’s kong, because hers was crap and his was clearly way, way better! And that’s just what she did – several times in fact – but each time she “swapped” kongs with Monkey she ended up with the rubbish one.  Just as she was about to give up on the whole thing, the relentless sun melted the kongs just enough to expose the little nuggets of food held within, and Daisy finally got the kong that had been intended for her! Proof, if any were needed, that nicking stuff off your brother is always the best policy.

Being a naughty, entitled little princess is a valid life choice, especially if you always get away with it!

More recent pics:

Strawberries are so much easier to handle than frozen kongs!

Having his kong repeatedly stolen did nothing to disrupt Monkey & Daisy’s relationship. He still loves her, and of course she still loves her too.

On other days during the heatwave, shaded woodland trails were enough to keep the pups comfortable…

…and (mostly) entertained.

And when the walk isn’t quite enough, you can still do something silly like have a chase..

..or howl your head off at the cows on the nearby farm!

That’s Daisy bench pressing a full Monkey. Curiously she chose to use one front paw and one back paw for the lift – not something you typically see in the gym. 

Not content with doing physical training on their own, Monkey and Daisy have been roping me into their workouts. You wouldn’t believe the amount of effort it takes to pull them both onto the grassy verge when a van or even a big scary tractor comes trundling down the narrow farm roads on our walks. Monkey’s the worst, not just because he’s big and heavy, but because he actively resists as I try to haul him to safety before he becomes a Monkey-flavored road-pizza. It’s as though he actually wants to get squished.

Daisy seems to think that she’s the Beagle version of a kettlebell. Every time I open the utility room door to get to the fridge, she dashes past me investigate the bins, or the bags of dry wood for the stove, or the big dog food container, and the only way to get her out of there is to pick her up and carry her out. I also have to pick her up to get her out of the raspberry enclosure in the garden, and to get her off the back of the sofa, and to get her off the table on the deck if one of us has left a partially emptied mug of coffee up there. About the only time I don’t end up lifting her is when she sneaks into the bedroom and leaps on the bed during the day. Our naughty little girl still can’t be trusted not to pee on our bed if she’s left in there on  her own, and she absolutely will pee if she thinks I’m planning to remove her. At such times the only safe option is to lure her out of the bedroom with a biccie, and she knows it! Crafty little bugger!

When he was a much littler boy than he is now, we briefly considered changing Monkey’s name to Olaf; there was something Viking-like about the way he would blunder into rooms, knock things off tables and steal toilet rolls. In due course he became less clumsy and a little more cautious, and we realized that we had indeed got his name right. There might have been a hint of Viking in there, but he was overwhelmingly a Monkey.

It now seems that Monkey’s inner Olaf has risen to the surface once again; he’s discovered where I put my trousers at bedtime and has taken to leading bold raiding parties early in the morning to plunder pockets for hidden biccie treasure. As lead Viking on these raids he of course gets first dibs at the pillaging, but Daisy takes care of the raping part, humping him vigorously while his snout is stuck in my pockets.

They’re not just Vikings – they’re furry beserkers!

Daisy herself has gained an agility power-up as she can now leap over most of the wire-fenced Beagle no-go zones in our garden. She gained this new ability when a hedgehog visited one of the protected areas; her desperation to reach the hedgehog (and in so doing, wake the neighbors) gave her the extra adrenalin boost to make it over the fence. Once she’d done that, well those paltry wire walls lost all their powers of deterrence. At the moment I think she’s leaping them mainly because she can, but also because it winds up Monkey – who despite his superior height and strength has never attempted to do the same. It’s something I’m keen to stop; I’m worried she could hurt herself, but also as we head in to summer it’ll give her access to raspberries, potatoes and toxic sweet pea pods. It seems I’m forever doomed to spend time and money trying to keep pesky little girls out of places they shouldn’t be!

The Daisy Flea, this time jumping out of the raspberry enclosure!

Someone furry shouldn’t be in that raised bed either!

And they definitely shouldn’t be preparing to dig whilst in there!

More May pics:

There’s no shortage of bouncy, covered and mostly clean tennis balls in the pups’ toy box..

But once Daisy found this old, bald and smelly rubber ball lurking in a corner of the garden, she couldn’t stop playing with it!

Monkey likes toys, but wrestling & chases are his preferred way to play.

Sometimes it can take a little effort to get a chase started…

…but a cheeky bum-bite usually does the trick!

Job done, time to leg it!!!

And now we’re knackered!

I think someone’s trying to tell me that I should get on with building our new obelisks, and free up one of our favorite napping locations…

..because sometimes things get a bit cramped!