Beagle AWOL incidents are like buses; you can go for ages without having one, and then suddenly you’ll get two in quick succession. The first of them – involving Biggles – could have ended really badly; truly the stuff of nightmares.

I’ve been particularly busy lately and Beagle walks have been more about fulfilling my obligations than enjoyment, but I’ve tried to keep at least one day a week free for more adventurous outings. In recent weeks we’ve visited Loudoun Hill, walked circuits around the Ayrshire gorge, and of course seen a smelly waterfall named after Biggles.

Last Sunday however I was particularly short on time, the weather was dull and wet, and the best I could manage was a short trip along the coast to Barassie. Parking as carefully as possible in one of the suspension-hammering areas by the sea front, I unloaded Beanie & Biggles and walked them out across the sand until we’d got well clear of the main road. Like a seasoned drug pusher I gave my two furry clients a free sample of quality merchandise (chicken) to get them hooked, and made them well aware that I had an even bigger stash of the good stuff in my pocket. I then pointed them at the sea, and unhooked their leads. For the first half hour things went well; the two of them trotted off together in search of sniffs and edibles, only leaving the water to get another fix of chicken.

I’ve let them have off-lead adventures at Barassie several times before and each time they’ve stayed reassuringly close to the water, where there are always little dead crabs and other seafood nibbles to be foraged. I assumed that this time would be no different, but I it hadn’t occurred to me that as this was a Sunday afternoon, scores of other dog walkers had left scent trails between the pavement and the beach. Shortly after we turned to head back Biggles latched on to some of those trails and quickened his pace. I wasn’t overly concerned because he was still by the sea, but then his nose put him on course for the stretch of grass that sits between the beach and the road. I called him to me, but he’d been afflicted by that age old Beagle curse: selective deafness. The Beanster responded quickly however, so I attached her lead in short order and we went off together in pursuit of his highness. He was clearly having a good time, but all the while he was getting closer and closer to the road. The fact that Beanie and I were chasing him only spurred him on, but we were now too close to the road for me to risk changing direction to lure him back to the safety of the beach. He crossed from the grass onto the pavement by a minor road that serves only local resident traffic, but a junction with the busy main road was just a few meters away. In my head I could almost hear the squeal of brakes and the brief high-pitched shriek as I struggled to catch up with him; the crazy thing is I’ve been training an emergency recall word with them for years now for situations exactly like this, but in the heat of the moment I never thought to use it. Very fortunately at the last moment he was stopped by something more basic: a lamppost that needed to be peed on. His cocked leg was just lowering as my outstretched hand grabbed his collar, bringing this latest escapade to a happy end.

It goes without saying that Barassie is now off the table for a while, and I’m grateful that I’ve had a tragedy-free reminder that even older and less disobedient Beagles are powerless to resist the call of a sniffy trail. I’ve also been reminded that all the emergency recall training in the world is useless if I don’t use it when it’s needed!

As I said at the start of this post there has been a second Beagle AWOL incident, and this one was caused by a storm called “Gareth”. News reports made a big deal of high winds and rain in Wales and the North or England, but our local forecast noted only winds up to 50mph and brief showers; these are hardly extreme conditions on the west coast of Scotland and not at all deserving of a name, so we thought little of it. The forecast had underestimated the force of the wind however and unbeknown to us, Gareth flattened one of our fences during the night. Early in the morning his Biggleship requested a trip to the outside loo and returned without incident, but then Beanie went for her morning duties, and decided to make the most of the opportunities afforded by the downed fence. Fortunately for us, the fence merely separates our garden from that of our neighbor who is also a dog owner, so Beanie never got true freedom; unfortunately for our neighbor it’s more than likely that Beanie left a little foul-smelling surprise somewhere in their garden. Wherever that little turd deposit is, it’ll have been carefully positioned so as to avoid obvious detection until squelched underfoot, because that’s how The Beanster rolls.

It’s a common complaint in our part of the world that there hasn’t been a proper summer for years. Well, now we’ve finally got one, with week after week of sunny, rain-free weather, and guess what? It’s too hot! I know it’s too hot because every couple of minutes there’s a loud thudding sound as Biggles wanders over to an area of the floor that he thinks might be cooler and collapses with all the grace of a drunk rugby player. Beanie doesn’t do this, but only because she’s almost permanently stationed in our bedroom, which is the coolest room in the house. In conditions like this living by the coast really comes into its own; no matter how hot it is, long energetic walks are still possible thanks to that ever present big salty paddling pool.

When the weather’s sunny but not overly warm I have to exercise extra caution when unleashing Team Chaos because they’re quite likely to go off in search of picnic debris. This week however I’ve been able to count on them heading straight into the cool wet stuff the instant I unclip their leads. Admittedly Beanie in particular has sometimes embarked on Project Picnic Hunt once she’s cooled off sufficiently, but for the most part, the two of them have been surprisingly manageable.

It’s almost like having a regular doggies, just so long as I don’t break the cardinal rules of off-lead Beagling:

• never run out of chicken
• never take your eyes off them
• never run out of chicken
• always get the little buggers back on lead before sunset, or the dusk scents will lead them astray
• and most importantly, never run out of chicken

Did someone mention chicken?

Yep, apparently someone did and Beanie is inbound!

It’s not often that Beanie & Biggles get individual walks, and still rarer that one of them has an intentional solo offlead adventure, so when I unleashed Biggles on the beach at Barassie to serve as a model in a product shoot I was doing, I wasn’t entirely sure what to expect.

As it turned out, he was absolutely brilliant! He stuck to me like glue as I hunted for good locations, and even seemed to read my mind when I thought about posing him on top of rocks. What I really needed though was action shots of him dashing through water, so I put him in a sit-wait at various points, got into position with my camera, and recalled him. I couldn’t always predict the path he would take on his return, but he did come back every time and hang around at my feet as I checked the results.

A lot of treats got handed out during that photoshoot, and by the end of it I felt even closer to my little boy than I normally do. As we walked back to the van I spotted the unmistakable profile of Beanie watching out for us from the driver’s seat. Her tail started wagging uncontrollably when she saw us, and when we were just a few meters from the van she dived off the seat to meet us at the door. The greeting we both received from her was incredible – it was obvious she’d really missed us, and though I took them both on a joint run along the beach straight afterwards, Susan told me in no uncertain terms that I should hold another solo photoshoot, this time with Beanie as the star. So I did.

Where Biggles almost walked to heel when offlead, Beanie was much more into sniffing and exploring as we walked across the beach, but any time I called her for a shot, she was there in a flash.

The only problem I had with The Beanster was her insistance on the one shot, one biccie rule. Any time I tried to get a few extra shutter clicks in, she wasn’t having it. Rules are rules, and Beanie has always been a stickler for them.

On our return to the van I found that Biggles hadn’t been too bothered by our departure, but he was happy to see us all the same. As before we went on another normal beach run together to round things off, and by the end of it, Beanie was ready for a bit of.. private time.

There may not be an actual “Do not disturb” sign in plain view, but the body language says it all!

Back at home when I was processing the photos I became acutely aware of just how often Biggles’ rude bits had made it into the frame. I had to reject a lot of otherwise cute images due to the conspicuous presence of his furry tackle, and I started to wonder if maybe he’d done it deliberately. I think I got my answer later in the day when one of the old Christopher Reeve-era Superman films came on the telly. Initially Biggles was curled up on the sofa, but just as John Williams’ excellent signature theme started to play, he rolled over onto his back and put it all on show.

Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No it isn’t, and it certainly wouldn’t get a PG rating like the movie.

It could have been a coincidence, but it felt like a statement, and I’m now completely incapable of hearing that tune without thinking of Biggles’s timely display.