It’s now three weeks since either of us has had a Poppy moment, and three weeks since Monkey has had a chase or a cuddle with the smallest and best big sister in the world. Life resumed its familiar rhythm quite soon after we lost Beanie & Biggles; emotional time-outs happened when they had to, but between them we got on with things quite well. It’s been very different with Poppy; her sudden and wholly unexpected death knocked us clean off the rails. If you Google for articles on dealing with the loss of a pack member, many of them will tell you “.. and don’t forget to feed your other dog”. Seriously? After 16 years of having Beagle mealtimes as major events in every day, how could that ever happen? Well it very nearly did, and in response I actually wrote “Feed Monkey” on our whiteboard, scoring off each meal as I served it up so that he couldn’t possibly miss out.
One sunny morning I was working on the garden while Monkey sat alone on one of our loungers. Thoughts of Poppy interupted my flow and I slumped down on my heels for a moment and looked across to him. Without looking at me he dropped his head onto his front paws and let out a long, heavy sigh. It was a perfect summing up of how we were both feeling at that moment.
That’s not to say there haven’t been brighter moments in our days of course. Undoubtedly one of them was when Elmer – one of Monkey’s brothers – came through on the train with his mum Mimi. Early in their lives both Beanie & Biggles had sibling reunions but neither of them ever showed signs of recognition; as far as they were concerned they could have been meeting completely unrelated Beagles. This was not at all the case with Elmer and Monkey. There’s no way to know if they actually remembered each other, but certainly they were immediately and uncommonly at ease in each other’s company. The positive effects of that reunion walk stayed with Monkey for the rest of that day; he was happier, more confident and more relaxed, and I can’t thank Mimi enough for bringing Elmer through.
Another memorable moment occurred when I took Monkey for a short jog around local farm fields. I had him on an extending lead and I was kind of letting him choose the route. We chased a rabbit at one point but the hunt was unsuccessful, and I can think of two possible reasons for our failure: (1) the big lumbering lump of humie to which Monkey was tethered was completely unfit for chasing down a wascally wabbit, and (2) Monkey has the mistaken belief that chasing something without baying one’s head off Biggles-style can have a successful outcome. Regardless, as our outing drew to a rabbit-free close Monkey figured it would be a good idea to leave the grass and run over a patch of solid, dry earth. It looked fine to me, and anyway Monkey was in charge, so we went for it. Two steps in my foot broke through the thin dry crust of earth and almost my entire lower leg vanished into mud. I burst out laughing and Monkey wagged furiously with a big grin on his face. I pushed hard with my other leg to get myself out, but it too plunged into the mud. I was now in a Beagle-style predicament, and I considered my options. If Biggles had been with me he’d have councilled me to stay very still and quiet until some other humie came along to sort it out. Monkey favours a completely different approach which can be summed up in one word: howl! I didn’t feel that either of these approaches was actually going to get me out of the mud anytime soon, but just then a nature documentary from years ago popped into my head. It featured the “Jesus Lizard” – a reptile that can actually lift itself up out of water and run on the surface. I weigh a lot more than that lizard and I’m a lot, lot slower, but the principle is the same: take steps as rapidly as possible and as long as each new step sinks a bit less than the last, you’ll make it to the surface. And so I did, but my shoes were (and still are, to be honest) caked in mud and smelling like cow poop, so much so that later in the day Monkey grabbed one of them and took it for a triumphal sprint round the garden.
Anyway, after all that verbiage, it’s time to get to back to what this post is supposed to be about: Poppyisms, or all those little quirks that made Poppy such a great little character.
This One
I’ve already mentioned Poppy’s assertive paw press to identify any door or baby gate that stands in her way, but in due course she developed a variant of “This one”, which I called “This One With Urgency”. It was used most frequently when her special home-cooked food had just been placed in the lounge, and she was on the wrong side of the gate.
Frightened Rat
At one point in the Poppy era we got a rat in the house; actually it came up from the foundations when I lifted floor boards to have a nosy. When disturbed, it would run from one room to another at remarkable speed. I can therefore claim without exaggeration that every morning, when her first breakfast had just been served, Poppy could exit her crate and sprint to her bowl faster than that frightened rat.
Death By Asphyxia
As noted in a previous post, Poppy would love to climb onto Susan’s left shoulder and press – really firmly – her ear against Susan’s mouth and nose, thereby posing a genuine suffocation risk. Having failed to starve her mum of oxygen, she often then move to alower position, but always find a suitable chin-rest so that she could gaze into Susan’s eyes before napping.
Spies Across The Bridge
I’ve seen a spy movie where the opposing sides would exchange captives across a bridge, with the instruction “eyes ahead, keep moving”. A similar thing would happen each night when Poppy and Monkey agreed to swap hooves; each would take slow deliberate steps away from their own hoof towards the other one.
Are you really using that chew?
Many years ago when I was at uni getting food from the canteen, we would each be allowed a single bread roll. Som epeople would actually have preferred two rolls, while others didn’t want one at all. A meme soon started up based around the phrase “are you really uisng that roll?”. Poppy had her own version of this; on occasions when she’d lost interest in her chew, she would go and stand over Monkey as he happily lay with his between his paws, not necessarily chewing it. No glances or verbal communication would be exchanged, but the meaning was clear: “Are you really using that chew?”
The garden of many fences
We have a special area in our garden where we grow fruit and veg, and we’d prefer not to have any Beagles getting in there to sample said edibles without permission. I ringed with area first with gridded cattle fencing; it kept Beanie, Biggles and Monkey out, but Poppy was small enough to squeeze through the gaps. “No problem” I thought, “I’ll just close up her entry points by criss-crossing some cord”. She nibbled her way through. “OK, I’ll use gardening wire”. She nibbled through that too. “Heavy wire then, that’ll work!”. She didn’t nibble through that, but somehow she could still get in to nick stuff. In the end, after nearly doubling the cost of the fence by buying a succession of cord and wire, I ended up spending even more to double-fence the whole thing. That finally worked, but I learned never to underestimate The Popster.
Time
One of the early changes we made to hold back Poppy’s epilepsy was to go to four Beagle meal times each day, spaced so as to have no long fasts in any day. In the hour before her bedtime meal, Poppy would watch me like a hawk. If I got out of my seat for any reason she would sprint past me and camp out at the kitchen baby gate, indicating “This one with urgency!!!” with her paw. I had to tell her “No Poppy, it’s not time yet.” She quickly learned that phrase and would reluctantly head back into lounge, ready to go again if I gave any signs I might be getting her supper. Later on when she came to trust that I would never let her miss her supper, she might go for a nap in our bed instead of watching me overtly, but she never came out of yellow alert. No matter how deeply asleep she seemed to be, all I had to say – however quietly – was “Poppy, it’s time” and there’d be a mad scramble out of bed.
Sleeping Beauty
After a trip in the van it normally fell to me to get the pups out of their travel crates and back into the house. The instant I unlatched Monkey’s crate he’d be out, but Poppy would stay in her crate until I stuck my head in there and gave her a kiss on her nose.
Unwrapping Christmas
I’ll never forget Poppy’s first Christmas dinner. Instead of just diving into her bowl and devouring its contents in a frenzy like a regular Beagle, she carefully lifted out all the components of her meal – the veg items, a sausage, a piece of turkey and so on – and organised them on the floor. Once she’d surveyed everything she then began consumption, nibbling her way through the items in a very thoughtful, planned way.
Not everyone likes their own brand
Remember that scene in one of the Austin Powers films where Fat Bastard drops one and states “Oh everyone likes their own brand, don’t they?”. Poppy didn’t. She would make a sharp exit any time she did a particularly vile air-poop, and we soon learned to hold our breath if she scarpered to the other side of the room.
Yeehawwww!
Like Beanie before her, Poppy liked to hump her brother. Poppy’s humping style was more laid back than Beanie’s, and we often joked about getting her a little cowboy outfit for her Monkey-riding sessions.
Potato Obsession
Poppy liked vegetables more than any of our other Beagles, but she was particularly crazy about Jerusalem Artichoke tubers (also known as “Fartichokes” due to their effect on the gut), and potatoes. Poppy just loved potatoes and would always try to dig them up from our potato beds and nick them from the shed after we’d just had a harvest.
When we buried her we put a fresh seed potato in her little bundle, along with her little red dumbbell which was her first ever toy.
