Beagles have very good internal clocks – they always seem to know when it’s time for a walk, for breakfast, for tea and so on – but I don’t think their internal calendars are up to much. Nevertheless, I’m pretty sure Beanie knew that something special was happening this weekend due to a series of strange deliveries and even stranger activities. Whether she knew all this was about creating a posh present for her sixth birthday is doubtful, but it certainly piqued her interest..

A box full of this stuff arrives (it’s not even edible BTW)

Susan slaves over a hot sewing machine..

And with four legged critters forbidden entry to the kitchen, all Beanie can do is peer through the door at the proceedings.

Ever since we got her, Beanie has preferred sleeping under a cover. Most afternoons she can be found on the sofa, tightly wrapped in one of her blankets. Sometimes she can wrap herself up – it’s a pretty cool thing to see. She carefully pokes her nose under one edge of the blanket, deftly tosses it over her then winds round and round until it’s nice and tight. Other times, actually most of the time if truth be told, she has to request human assistance: a paw on your arm accompanied by an intense stare right into your eyes or a pitiful whimper. As an aside, a number of recent TV shows about dogs have featured the use of a blanket to assess intelligence; you cover the dog with a blanket, and the speed with which the dog extricates itself indicates its IQ. I wonder what the scientists would make of a dog that not only enjoys having the blanket over her, but even requests a recovering if her bottom is sticking out of one end?

Anyway, we figured Beanie would appreciate a “day bed” that comes with it’s own cover. This of course is exactly what “Cozy Cave” beds are supposed to be, but looking at the beds available in the UK, we couldn’t see anything that would be just right for Beanie. They were all either too small, or the wrong shape, or not practical from a washing point of view. So Susan decided to make one specifically to meet the Beanster’s exacting requirements, as a present for her sixth birthday. The end result is kind of like a big fur-lined sleeping bag/bed, with a removable memory foam mattress.

On first viewing, Beanie found it very comfy to lie on but didn’t realize she could actually get inside it.

Then the penny dropped! The beauty of this design is that you can retreat completely inside if you’re having a Greta Garbo moment..

Or keep watch from the entry if you think there might be some food in the offing..

Or be half-in, half-out if you’re feeling more sociable!

Of course that wasn’t the only good thing about Beanie’s birthday. There was also the obligatory run on the beach, even though my legs were still killing me from a heavy squatting and kettlebell session the previous day:

Incidentally, it’s hard to see from all the camera jiggling but that final onlead running section in the video is actually a stealth attack on some birds further up the beach. Beanie’s idea of “stealth” differs significantly from the military concept of stealth, in that it involves baying loudly and splashing as you approach your prey. In the six years she’s been using this technique to stalk birds, the number of successful captures remains at zero. Still, maybe next time will be different.

After the run we had a joint present opening for Beanie and Biggles, who of course was having his unbirthday at the time. This was a bit of cheat because we just filled some old treat dispensing toys with posh nosh like dried venison pieces and wrapped them up in spare Amazon boxes, but the pups were delighted nonetheless.

The present opening commences..

Biggles gets off to a flying start, ripping his box open in a few seconds…

But then disaster strikes and he ends up going for a blind, bumpy tour of the room with the box stuck on his head.

In fact all we really needed were the Amazon boxes. Both Beanie & Biggles were so utterly engrossed in their destruction that it took them ages to notice the food in their toys, but eventually their noses put them back on track. Beanie set about her toy with great enthusiasm, but unfortunately the treats inside were too large to fall out on their own, so her usual tactic of rolling and throwing the container around didn’t get her very far. Biggles on the other hand immediately power-chewed the whole toy to break everything into nice small pieces. He’d virtually emptied his toy by the time Beanie liberated her first treat!

Eventually I caved in and joined Beanie in her efforts to get food out of that devlish blue cyclinder. We worked as the perfect team; I crushed the treats under my knee and carefully extracted the pieces, and she ate them. It kind of reminded me of how it used to be with my boss when I was employed as a software engineer.

Anyway, once all the treats had been dealt with – MORE treats! or to be precise, some personalised “pupcakes” from The Beagles Bakery:

So I reckon that was a pretty good way for Beanie to celebrate her sixth birthday. I’m just hoping that in the days to come, that new day-bed of hers saves me from having to break my concentration every twenty minutes to go fix her blanket. We shall see..

We had the beach to ourselves on our run today, due most likely to the relentless rain and wind we’re getting now we’re into October. Things were very different a few days ago, when September gave us one last blast of summer.

The conditions were perfect: clear skies and warm sun, but with a pleasantly cooling breeze. We headed down to the beach around low tide, and Susan volunteered to tie herself to our two crazy mutts. It’d been a while since Susan had run with them, so this was an extra-special session for the pups, and Beanie marked it by doing her very best bouncing bomb impersonation as she bounded across the water.

Biggles just powered through it like normal, but all the while the naughtiness center in his brain was encouraging him to forget the running thing and just have a good old fashioned playfight with his sister. Eventually the naughty side won out!

That’s the funny thing about Biggles. When he’s in the house he’s very respectful toward his sis; he’s always doffing his furry ginger hat to Lady Beanie. But outside… a whole different ruleset applies. He instantly becomes bold and playful, and his respect for Beanie is replaced by an irresistible desire to shoulder-barge and wrestle with her. I can’t help smiling when this happens on a run. It’s kind of disruptive if it occurs in the middle of a speed workout, but fun nonetheless!

Unfortunately this great day out on the beach ended with a mild case of “Beagle Tail” for the Beanster. Apparently it’s a kind of whiplash injury to the tail caused by a particularly vigorous shake, often occurring after the Beagle has become very wet. So I guess it could have been this shake..

 ..that did the damage and gave Beanie a sad, droopy tail for the rest of the afternoon. Happily Beanie’s wagger was completely recovered by the next day, but thinking about it, it’s remarkable that neither of our pups have experienced this condition before now. Beanie often gets hyper when she’s wet and shakes very vigorously, and – wet or dry – Biggles sometimes shakes so powerfully that he nearly knocks himself off his own feet!

For some time now I’ve been giving Beanie & Biggles a bit of off-lead time during our beach runs; it’s pretty much the only place they get offlead these days that doesn’t have some kind of fence around it!

It started last year when I switched to doing rapid-fire interval training for part of the run. Both of them got so into the rhythm of the intervals that one day I decided to unclip their leads briefly to see whether they’d stay with me. They didn’t. Well not exactly. They went off on a mad chase for 150m or so, then turned round and legged it straight back to me, for which they were duly rewarded. In the past they’d just have sprinted way off into the distance, leaving me nervously watching as their bums turned into specs on the horizon (then vanished altogether), so this was a huge improvement. I sent them off for two more high-speed chases, and when these also completed without any major excursions I clipped their leads back on and rewarded them one more time. Over the next few weeks we had more of these little adhoc bursts of freedom and gradually I came up with a set of rules that so far have been successful every time:

• Choose a time for the the run when the tide is fairly low and and there’s a good wide beach
• Don’t release them until they’ve got into the rhythm of the run and already burned off some of their excess energy. Coincidentally this also means that we’re further up the beach, safely away from picnics and most walkers, so there are fewer distractions
• Always come armed with pieces of chicken. Give them a small taste of chicken prior to release, reward every return to base, and reward even more heavily once they’re back on lead.
• Keep running while they’re off-lead and keep the off-lead period short. They’re getting a good long run anyway, so the off-lead section is just the icing on the cake.
• Make sure there’s still a period of exciting running (intervals) following the off-lead bit.

The two of them became so used to the beach routine that eventually I felt confident enough to give them the taste of freedom during a plain old walk. Susan was not entirely keen, but I talked her into it, and one day last week we gave it a go..

Seconds after release.. Are those cheeky bottoms about to disappear for an undetermined period?

Nope – they’ve turned..

Return to base in progress!

And they’re back for their first pit-stop. Break out the chicken!

Susan used the “Go play” command to send them off for several more run-abouts, and each one went very smoothly, thanks mostly to Beanie. It was as though she had a timer running in her head that went off whenever she’d been away too long, causing her to pull a 180 and head back to base for a reward. Occasionally Biggles tried to tempt her into a Beagles-only adventure but she resisted.

Biggles hangs back, trying to lure Beanie down the path to Naughtyville…

..to no avail. When it’s time for chicken, it’s TIME FOR CHICKEN!

And of course when Beanie was back with us getting the tasty stuff, Biggles didn’t hold out for long!  The two of them were only off-leash for a few minutes but they had a great time together and never went much more than 100m from us. That’s the kind of behavior we’ve always wanted! Nevertheless I intend to reserve these sessions almost exclusively for runs for the time being. Why? Food alone has never been enough to stop Beanie & Biggles from going off on their own adventures; I’m convinced it was the excitement and anticipation of the intervals that helped to build the “short burst and return” behavior – the food just reinforced it.

On a completely different note, I was just contacted by the team behind the “Backyard Oil” show on the Discovery Channel in the US. They wanted to use some of my old photos of Beagle Racing for the upcoming show on Tuesday 28th. They chose a a few shots, including a sweet one of the Biggly Boy. Of course I gave them permission, but quite what Beagle racing in Scotland has to do with modern oil prospectors in Kentucky, I have no idea! The show isn’t on the UK incarnation of Discovery yet, but I should be able to view it over the internet in due course.