Paid To Woof

After the recent debacle in Dumfries and Galloway I was keen to do a hillwalk that would go smoothly from start to finish. The obvious candidate was Ben Arthur or “The Cobbler”; it’s one of our favorite hills and has a well maintained and clear path from start to finish that actually ties up with published maps.

We started out from Arrochar very early in the morning with a clear star-filled sky above us, and reached the ridge between the north and central peaks with half an hour to go before official sunrise. Perfect!

I took a few minutes to swap my cold, sweaty top for a nice dry thermal one, got a couple of snaps with the camera, dished out some treats to my furry and impatient companions, and then made the remaining short trek up to the central peak. Thus far things couldn’t have gone any better; there wasn’t a cloud in the sky, we’d timed the walk perfectly, and we were about to have the summit all to ourselves.  Just as the rocky Eye of The Cobbler structure popped into view, I also saw two radio masts and a camouflaged tent.

I’d never seen anything like that on the top of a hill before, and I assumed it was some kind of unmanned science project. I took the pups straight past it and set up to get some nice shots of the sunrise. As usual I chatted away to Beanie and Biggles as I set up the tripod and gave them a few treats.

A couple of photos in I suddenly heard the crackle of a radio from the tent, and someone replied. Clearly we weren’t alone, and whoever was in the tent had heard me gibbering away to my Beagles like an escaped mental patient. The radio conversation continued with lots of “Echo.. echo.. over” and all of that jazz, and I lowered my voice as I told the pups to quit tangling their leads around the legs of my tripod. That was a big mistake! You should never, ever let a Beagle know that you need them to be quiet, because if you do you’re guaranteed to get this..

I heard the occupant of the tent having to repeat his latest radio exchange, and in a effort to restore the peace I made another, even bigger mistake: I gave the pups a treat each. For the time it took to devour a chicken-flavored mini-jumbone (about 25 seconds) there was indeed a cessation of woofing, but I’d just rewarded their previous outburst with food. I had in effect paid them to woof. Unsurprisingly they woofed again as soon as their jumbones had been dispatched.

I wanted a few more shots, and I didn’t want to disturb the occupant of the tent any further, so I paid them again, and again. This was a dream come true for Biggles. Woofing had always been one of his favorite hobbies, but now he’d turned that hobby into career. He’d become a professional woof artist!

I got my shots and then I hurried Team Gobby down off the summit and back to the ridge as quickly as I could. Biggles continued in his efforts to generate more edible income, but soon discovered that on The Cobbler, overtime goes unpaid.

Usually we just retrace our steps to get down off Ben Arthur, but this time I decided to try the alternate route to the southeast. This kept us in the bright morning sun and provided a marvelous view of the area around the southern peak.

I found this route to be much kinder on my knees than trudging back down the rocky “staircase” on the other side, and before long we joined up with the main path taking us past the Narnain boulders and back to the van for a well-earned breakfast.

From a hillwalking point of view this expedition couldn’t have gone better, and its success has gone some way to erasing the memory of being rescued from dense foliage just a few minutes from a car park in Glentrool. However, it has also set a dangerous precedent in Beagle law and proved to Biggles that he can earn his keep not just by collecting socks, but also by woofing.

The Bigglet. He’s not just good at making noise, he’s a Pro!