Now he’s two years old, what kind of young man has Monkey become? Well for one thing he’s certainly our most entertaining Beagle by a country mile. Toss a treat to any of our other Beagles and it’ll be speed-swallowed in less than a second; toss a treat to Monkey, and you’re in for an intense 10 minute play session as he throws it in the air, rolls on it, pretends to pounce on it and basically does everything imaginable with it, except for actually eating it. In fact sometimes he gets so carried away that one of our other Beagles comes along and swipes it from right under his nose.
Aside from the ears and the other overtly doggy characteristics, he looks a lot like a little human boy when he’s got a toy. He really seems to use his imagination as he plays, throwing his toy in the air and then looking away as it lands so that he can pretend that it was thrown by some invisible play partner. I really need to catch some video of him in full flow because I’ve never seen a dog being so inventive as they play.
Monkey is an incredibly gentle, sensitive little soul who is also a complete klutz. For some reason he’s decided that he should never jump onto a sofa in the conventional, front-facing way. Instead he sneaks up by the side of the sofa and leaps up from there, often without knowing if anyone or anything is occupying his landing spot. More than once he’s landed right on my groin – all 18kg of him slamming down paws first onto my joy department – and when I let out an involuntary cry he immediately jumps back onto the floor, clearly very distressed that he’s hurt me. Yes, I actually have to go reassure and apologize to him for reacting when he power-punches my balls. By contrast, whenever Beanie & Biggles hear the sound of a humie in pain they usually raid that humie’s pockets on the assumption that the humie is temporarily less able to fend them off.
I don’t think anyone would describe Monkey as brave – not unless they think that discretion isn’t just the better part of valour, but actually the only part of valour worth considering. While passing other dogs that aren’t quite so friendly Monkey nearly always drops back and puts me between him and the grumpy woofer. Perhaps he took my cautionary words to heart when he was a pup: whenever he approached a sleeping Beanie I would tell him that “there are old Monkeys and there are bold Monkeys, but there are no old bold Monkeys”. I think he’s definitely going for the “old Monkey” life choice.
There is however one less savoury aspect to his personality that I feel I must mention: he’s a raging pervert. In a previous post I already described how he seems to be infatuated with the Beanster despite the massive and inappropriate age gap, but now he’s become obsessed with sniffing any surface that has recently had a bottom on it. It doesn’t matter whether that bottom belonged to a Beagle or a human; if the bottom had an anus and it recently vacated a seat or bed, he’s going to drop whatever he’s doing and go sniff for… well I’m not sure what he’s sniffing for but it doesn’t seem normal to me. That Monkey boy of ours just has no sense of propriety!
Nevertheless Happy Birthday Monkey! Let’s hope you make it to your third birthday without getting arrested!
