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 several months of hibernation

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

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 :)