Size-wise Monkey has now overtaken his older sister Poppy, and looking at them playing it’s sometimes easy to forget that he’s still just a four month old pup who still has a lot of essential skills to acquire. For example it’s only in the last week that he’s managed to jump onto our sofas, and even now he can only do it if he’s focused on play; if he stops to think about it he’s overwhelmed and either aborts the attempt or face-plants on the seat cushion before sliding back to the floor. He can climb any flight of steps as well as his sister, but turn him around and ask him to come back down and his confidence can suddenly crumble. His face is so expressive you can see the emotional roller-coaster he’s on as he as tackles something new: “Yeah I can do that! Oh hang on, actually it looks a bit scary. Oh crap I’m going to die! No, no, I’m OK, I’m OK. Oh yeah that was easy – I was never scared!”
We rode the roller-coaster together recently when I took him for his first trip up Loudoun Hill with Poppy. It’s only a small hill that normally takes about 10 minutes from base to summit, but the great Monkey expedition easily clocked up 20 minutes on the ascent, and even longer on the way down. I very much enjoyed cupping my hand under his little furry bum to give him a boost when needed, but I was toiling on the way down, trying to keep a wriggling Monkey tucked under one arm while holding onto Poppy’s lead with the other.
By contrast my second trip up the hill with the A-team was a relaxing stroll, and that’s despite Beanie and Biggles working hard to take their lead tangling skills to the next level.
The youngsters hang out in the van…
while the A-Team show who are the real kings of hill climbing
Despite his tender age Monkey has demonstrated a remarkable talent for Poo Magic. This highly specialized subset of the performing arts involves the assisted removal of an unfeasibly long foreign body from one’s bum hole. Beanie is of course the world record holder with her 12 inch plastic shopping bag fragment, but earlier this week Monkey gave a very creditable roadside performance with an 8 inch object. Until I got my hand on the protruding end of it and started pulling I figured it was just a regular klingon, but that thing just kept on coming. I’ll never know for sure what it was – it was too coated in the brown stuff for me to see – but as Monkey likes nothing better than to sneak poo bags out of my pockets when he’s sat on my lap, that’s got to be my best guess.
This was such an impressive performance for a novice anal magician that it may have put Beanie’s nose out of joint, because she’s been off her main meals intermittently for a week or so.
For many Beagle owners reluctance to eat at mealtimes is a sure sign of a health problem, but throughout her life Beanie has used it as an attention-grabbing tool. I felt certain that this time was no different, based mainly on the fact that I’d watched her turn her nose up at her bowl full of kibble, but spend ages trying to get a piece of the exact same kibble that escaped from Biggles’ bowl and rolled under the hall table. I was all set to use the time-honored “eat it now or I’ll take the bowl away” technique to get her eating again, but then Susan started Googling. Maybe Beanie really could be ill this time? Maybe she could be losing her sense of smell and finding kibble insufficiently appetizing? Yep, you guessed it: we got a vet appointment just to play it safe, and of course she passed it with flying colors. She may be 14 years old, but she still knows how to get us worried.
As for Biggles, well he’s having the time of his life, having finally solved a mystery that’s been troubling him for the last 13 years. You see whenever I go for a shower I lay out my fresh clothes, and when the water starts flowing and I’m safely tucked away in the cubicle, Biggles sneaks in and tries to nick my socks. He checks my top, my boxers, my pants, but until now he’s never found my fresh socks. That’s because I hide them by tucking them into the door handle on the inside of the bathroom door. Last Tuesday however, right after Poppy’s latest attempt to emulate the Andrew Puppy and run off with the loo roll, he came into the bathroom for a nose around, and discovered my socks. He’s a happy boy, and now I’m the one trying to find the missing socks.
As usual, here are a few more recent shots:
