1 Beagle, 2 Biggles

Today we drove down to Bolton to pick up our new little boy, Biggles. His breeders live way down in the South of England, but they kindly brought him up to a Beagle show in Bolton in Lancashire, shortening our journey to just over 200 miles. That should have taken us around 3 hours each way, but of course I somehow chose this morning of all mornings to catch a nasty bout of diarhoea, from which I learned three things:

• the Imodium commercials are a pack of lies!
• journeys take a hell of a lot longer when you have to make a pitstop every 20 miles or so
• Welcome Break toilets are all exactly the same. Spooky…

Still none of that managed to spoil the pleasure of getting our second Beagle. And he’s an incredibly cute, cheeky and confident little chap.

Here are some shots of him just before we headed off back home:

He was absolutely brilliant in the car. He cried for a couple of minutes just as we set off, but after that he split his time between sleeping soundly and sniffing Beanie. She was right beside him, but in a separate crate. We felt it would be safer to keep them apart during the journey – neither of us fancied having to concentrate on driving if some little squabble broke out between them.

When we got him home, I took him out for a little exploration of the garden before tea, while Susan took Beanie on a well deserved walk. This was Beanie’s longest ever car journey, and though she was obviously very bored she hadn’t complained once.

Mmm.. Weetabix for tea!

Eventually our two pups met each other properly, and almost immediately began playing. We kept the play time short so that Beanie wouldn’t tire Biggles out, but they still found time to shred up a puppy training pad!

Biggles was really confident throughout and had no qualms about trying out Beanie’s toys and even giving her ears a cheeky nibble. Beanie clearly recognized him as a little pup and gave him a lot of latitude, though she eventually gave him a verbal caution when he made off with her favorite chew one time too many.

Lay off of my (blue suede) chew!

He understood and backed off the chew, then he promptly gave the same warning to the naughty little boy he saw reflected in the glass of our TV stand!

Prior to getting Biggles I’d been concerned about how well they might get on. I’m not worrying about that now, but as our obedience trainer reminded us, that’s only part of the picture. A new pup entering a household with an existing dog may bond more closely to his canine chum than his human owners, losing his independence into the bargain. To avoid that, we’re going to have to make sure that both Biggles and Beanie get plenty of time separately with us as well as time together. It’s going to be hard work, but worth it to make sure that Biggles grows up to be just as confident and outgoing as Beanie.