The Not-So-Great Escape

Posted on January 24, 2011 by Paul

Beanie and especially Biggles tend to get quite excited in the few minutes before a parkrun, but ever since Strathclyde started having pre-run warmups the excitement level has hit fever pitch. I have to forgo the warmup and keep a significant distance away from the group so that my boy’s baying doesn’t drown out any announcements, and this in turn frustrates him. This Saturday he became so frustrated that he managed to back out of his harness and do a runner!

It caught me completely by surprise; I expect Beanie to do that sort of thing because she’s always wiggling into and out of things, but the Bigglet? He’s not normally much into wiggling. This Saturday though he wiggled like Houdini in a straitjacket and won his freedom. He bolted first towards Susan & Beanie who were doing the warmup.

Susan and Beanie during the warmup, mere seconds before my boy’s escape

I could see the surprise and shock on Susan’s face as she spotted him – she said afterwards that she was thinking “hey, that dog looks just like Biggles. Oh c&*p it is Biggles!” The errant Biggly Boy did a quick flyby of his Mum and sister then veered off towards the start line. I had visions of his little white bottom disappearing into the freezing fog never to be seen again, or at least not for a few hours, and I called him. I had no expectation that it would work, but I had to try something ‘cos I certainly can’t run fast enough to catch the little bugger!

Amazingly my little boy did a U-turn as soon as he heard me and came running back. I figured he wasn’t going to stop when he reached me so I readied myself to catch him, but he came to a halt right by me and rolled straight onto his side. I must stress at this point that I’ve never practiced the Caesar Millan submission thing with him, but I guess he picked up on the stress in my voice and decided to go directly into the “naughty position” he’d seen on TV to save time! There was barely a minute left before the run but Biggles offered no struggle as I got him back into his harness and we made it to our customary starting position at the rear of the group in the nick of time.

The harness goes on. Again.

After that little hiccup, everything went smoothly. Susan and Beanie managed a terrific personal best despite the slippery ice while me and little Steve McQueen ran hard and came very close to equaling our current PB. I felt that was a good result for Team McQueen given that I’d spent most of the run on grass and gravel to avoid ending up on my arse.

Those last few yards were torture, but we managed to finish just ahead of Ally Rob and her handsome Dalmation Harvey

Susan and Beanie charge for the finish line!

Some of Saturday’s canicrossers after the run

A big “thank you” is due to Mike Ward at Busby Video for giving his permission to use these photos. You’ll find the full set of photos from the event here.

Canicross Scotland – Running With Dogs

Posted on January 17, 2011 by Susan

We ran our first 5k fun run (Glasgow East 5k) with Beanie when she was just 8 months old. It all happened quite by chance but we knew immediately that running was for us. Beanie and Biggles now have quite a little stash of road race medals and have also taken part in a few UK Canicross events. Canicross is the business! But sadly, whilst popular in Europe and to a lesser extent in the South of England, canicross hasn’t yet ‘arrived’ in Scotland. With just one or two formal events held in Scotland and the North of England each year things looked a little bleak.

However, in recent weeks things have progressed very well. We started attending Glasgow parkrun and Strathclyde parkrun and through that managed to get in touch with other canicross enthusiasts. To cut a long story short our group of enthusiasts has now evolved into “Canicross Scotland – Running with Dogs“. Our aim is to help develop the sport in Scotland by putting enthusiast throughout the country in touch with each other. We’ll also plan to arrange lots of free, informal canicross training runs and events in picturesque locations throughout Scotland – forests, beaches, woodland, parks and so on.

Here’s our website:

www.canicross-scotland.co.uk

If you, or anyone you know is interested in joining us then please do get in touch. If you have a dog or running related website then we’d be very grateful if you would link to us. Please help us to spread the word. You’ll make two little Beagles very happy!

Bone-Tired

Posted on January 16, 2011 by Paul

Last weekend we missed our regular parkrun due to snow and ice, so we were particularly eager for this weekend’s run. Knowing that there’d be a few other people running with dogs, Susan decided to bake up some bone-shaped sardine cakes. They turned out great:

The singing dog treat jar guards the bone-cakes as they cool

Those tasty bones came with a price though; as they cooked the smell of sardines flooded the house and drove our two Beagles mad. They in turn drove us mad. Beanie in particular spent most of the evening wailing outside the kitchen door, and when she wasn’t wailing, she was following us around like one of the spooky kids from the Midwich Cuckoos. Midway through the evening she had a protest pee in the corridor, and even though she did quit wailing when we finally crated her for the night, she spent a good twenty minutes telling her bed off.

Beanie’s long vigil at the kitchen door

Happily these trials and tribulations were forgotten when we got to Strathclyde park for the run. For the first time in ages there wasn’t the slightest trace of snow or ice anywhere on the route, but there was plenty of water. Apparently there’s a tradition in parkrun never to say that it rains; instead it’s customary to say that it’s merely “damp”. Well,it was so “damp” that afterwards our running shoes ended up in the utility room with the dehumidifier turned up to full, and I was very tempted to stick Beanie & Biggles in there for an hour too to dry them out. The sardine bone-cakes were a huge hit though, and as we talked with the other cani-crossers a decision was made to get together again for some informal training runs.

Our first such run happened today around the standard parkrun course in Pollok park. We were joined by Bundy and her dad Brian, Lindsay Cloughley with her handsome husky Suko, Colin Reid with his completely mad-for-it Border Terrier Mitch, and Scotland’s chief parkrun organiser Richard Leyton. He didn’t have a dog with him but he was keen to get a feel for what it’s like to run alongside cani-crossers (keen enough to be there with us at 8.30 in the morning on a Sunday!), and after the run we lent him the Biggly Boy for a quick lap of the car park so he could feel Beagle pulling power first hand.

The run itself was a conducted at a gentle pace, which is just as well because both Colin and Richard are quite a bit faster than the rest of us! The dogs got on great throughout; obviously Beanie, Biggles and Bundy are great together, but Beanie also hit it off with little Mitch and Biggles just loved running with Suko. At one point he and Suko were running right alongside each other and I could sense him swell with pride; they say Beagles are big dogs in small packages and I’m sure he felt twice his normal size as he trotted along with this huge, tame wolf of a dog! I did have a bit of hard time keeping Biggles going in a straight line for some of the run though, which is unusual. In a regular parkrun, the convention is to run in single file on the left, and with the scent of all the faster runners ahead of us, Biggles flies along like an arrow. Here however we were running level, and he kept wanting to stray to one side or the other. Apparently Mitch is a little like this too; if someone’s ahead of him, he runs brilliantly, but when he’s at the front, he tends to lose focus.

The run was great fun for two-leggers and four-leggers alike, and as we headed back to our cars Susan broke out another pack of bone-shaped cakes (chicken flavor this time). This gave the Beagle contingent a chance to demonstrate their superior gobbling ability. While Mitch and Suko politely nibbled at their cakes, Bundy polished hers off in a couple of bites, Biggles devoured his and nearly took my fingers with it, and Beanie bypassed the chewing process completely, swallowing hers whole before proceeding to nick half of Suko’s cake into the bargain. That’s Beagles for you – insatiable appetites paired with a complete lack of manners!

When we got home the peace and quiet we got (until tea time) was a strong indication that today’s run was a big hit!

If you’re in Scotland and you’re interested in running with your dog(s), get in touch and we’ll give you more info about runs that we take part in.