A few days ago I tore down the remaining half of our deck in preparation for the rebuild, so we currently have no access to the garden from the rear of the house. As a consequence every pee request from Team Beagle now requires the donning of shoes, leads, and more often than not a warm coat as we take them round to the garden from our front door. It’s a bit of an inconvenience for us humies, but it’s brilliant fun for Monkey and Daisy. The previously tedious ritual of “final wees” is now an exciting torchlit adventure, often involving mad chases through the darkness and endless rounds of that old but popular game entitled “I bet you can’t get my lead back on before I scarper”.

It’s making me realise that it was unwise not train the two of them to purge their bladders and bowels on command; on campsites Beanie and Biggles would reliably respond to the phrases “go be a clean girl” and “go do your business!”. There’s no such facility with Monkey and Daisy, and Daisy in particular must be given time off-lead if she’s to complete her night-time pee; failure to do so invariably leads to extra washings of her bed, or Monkey’s, and sometimes ours.

At least this new pee protocol is getting them back into the habit of synchronised trips to the outside loo. In recent months that had lapsed, leading to the following scenario:

• Beagle A (usually Daisy) requests to go pee-pee. Beagle B appears to have no such need.
• Beagle A is let into the kitchen, and instantly forgets the need to pee, instead focusing on debris on the floor or items on the worktops.
• After a suitable period of herding, Beagle A is ejected into the garden to go about their business.
• Humie returns to lounge, unpauses whatever was playing on the TV and lowers bottom back onto sofa. At this precise moment, Beagle B has a change of heart and insists that a pee is now urgently required.
• Humie sighs, pauses TV and leads Beagle B to the kitchen. After a suitable period of worktop surfing and attempts to access the kibble box in the adjoining utility room, Beagle B is finally ejected into garden.
• Humie returns to sofa, unpauses TV and at the precise instant arse is about to reacquaint itself with comfy sofa, Beagle A reports loudly that he/she is done and would like to come in. Needless to say Beagle A is on his/her own and Beagle B won’t be ready to come in until Humie has sat down again.

Well that whole run-around is finished now; if one pup wants out, they go out together and come back together. Thems the rules! There’ll be no more instances of naughty Beagles taking the pee, not on our watch. I should note however that in the early days of this new protocol Daisy did get a bit confused and pee our bed, but that’s not taking the pee, that’s just doing a pee inappropriately (and to be fair Monkey’s crate was closed at the time so her usual indoor emergency toilet was unavailable).

To finish, a hotch-potch of recent shots and a short chase video taken in the daytime, rather than at night by torchlight when certain puppy types should sleepy and ready for bed.

Is it the nuts she wants, or the tug toy? Given that this is Daisy we’re talking about, it’s both. Obviously.

Things have been getting weird for Monkey and Daisy of late. One day they went to bed for a nap and when they got up, large chunks of the patio and the deck had been walled-off by a hotch-potch of improvised barriers, and the steps had moved. The next day the part of the deck where Daisy really likes to do poos just plain disappeared, revealing a very intriguing underfloor area that was crying out to sniffed; that sniffing of course couldn’t happen because of the barriers. The situation was totally unacceptable and there were a number of very vocal protests. Even worse, their primary Humie servant (me) started spending long hours in the no-go zone making strange noises and saying the sort of words that are usually reserved for when a Beagle has done something really, really naughty.

On next Sardine day (the day when Beagle teatime nosh has sardines on it), things went from bad to much, much worse. Every visit to the outside loo was now conducted on lead; there were no opportunities for romping round the garden chasing squirrels or each other’s bottoms, no chances to apply their collective problem-solving skills to getting the fatballs out of our bird feeders, and no big walkies. It was terrible! The only thing that made it half-way tolerable was the Sardine aspect of Sardine Day. That and a couple of servings of chicken feet. And lots of cuddles and tummy tickles. A new pair of hooves was also given out to ease the anguish, but they didn’t quite work as intended, at least not for Daisy.

When she first got her hoof Daisy was very happy, but then she looked at Monkey’s hoof and discovered that by some horrible mistake, he’d been given the best one!

Negotiations followed this revelation, and after he’d been chewing away for ten minutes or so, Monkey agreed to a swap. Monkey seemed perfectly happy with the swap, and for a time, so did Daisy, until she realised that somehow Monkey still had the best hoof. A further swap was arranged, but incredibly Monkey again came out with the better deal.

Exasperated by the unfairness of it all, Daisy complained, and after several minutes of ear-bashing Monkey gave up on the whole hoof-chewing thing; he went to select something from the toybox instead, leaving Daisy with both hooves. Finally all seemed to be well, but then Daisy realised that Monkey now had a toy that was even better than her hooves! The injustice of it!

Staying as calm as she could in these trying circumstances, Daisy sought to resolve the situation in the fairest, most logical way a Beagle girl can: she tried to nick the toy out from between Monkey’s paws.

Things got noisy, and pretty soon nobody cared about the hooves or the toy. They wrestled, they took turns humping each other, and then they fell asleep snuggling each other, which is pretty much how most days end whether they involve Sardines or not.

By the end of Sardine day Storm Eowyn had burned itself out. Thankfully all the stuff we’ve built and planted in the garden over the last few years escaped harm, though both our neighbors suffered fence and various other damage. Monkey and Daisy are now back to roaming free in their garden and enjoying their walks (in fact walks have got even more enjoyable because there’s always a fallen tree to sniff and scramble over), but the Beagle no-go zone up on the patio will have to remain until I’ve finished the refresh of the deck. And despite all her protestations, Daisy still gets the raw deal when new hooves are handed out, no matter how many times she swaps with Monkey :)

It was this time last year when our Beagle family suffered it’s first loss; it’s perhaps because of that we’ve felt a strong need to embrace the forward-looking impetus of the New Year. I’ve started work on a full rebuild of our deck, Susan has already started germinating seeds indoors with plans for creating new beds for growing veg and flowers, and we’ve got some lovely bareroot trees waiting to be planted. Although it’s cold and the weather is still serving up some grey days, the overall feeling is that we should have a bright year ahead.

In the midst of all this work, Monkey and Daisy have somehow tied us into daily storytelling sessions. After Monkey’s had his breakfast, he just can’t settle until Susan has tickled his tummy and told him a little story. Sometimes the story is drawn from Beanie & Biggles’ adventures, sometimes it’s about all of Monkey’s fun times with Poppy, and when it’s story time he jumps onto the bed and rolls over onto his back ready to be indulged. If the story is too short or the tummy tickle not quite satisfying enough, he’ll chase after Susan and be a pest until he’s had a supplementary serving.

Daisy also appreciates the morning story, but she often has her own dedicated story session on my lap in the evening. This particular habit started as a means of calming her down when she gets overexcited but has only recently emerged from a crate nap. I scoop her up, sit her on my lap, give her kisses and cuddles and tell her about the adventures of Monastery Daisy, or Buddhist Monk Daisy, or Golden Age Philosopher Daisy. Use of the word “adventure” here isn’t really appropriate, because the story I tell always focuses on how fictional Daisy stays calm  and quiet in the face of stimulation, and never feels the urge to bite her brother’s balls, or pull his tail, or hump him vigorously, or go round sticking her snout into unattended coffee cups. Yes, protagonist Daisy is usually the contemplative polar opposite of the Crazy Daisy that sits squirming and grizzling on my lap. If I tell the story right, real-life Daisy relaxes into my arms, happily receiving a tummy tickle and surrendering to the urge to close her eyes.

Lets face it, Monkey and Daisy have done such a good job of training us that Poppy, Biggles and even Beanie would be thoroughly proud of them.