The Bigglet has been a bit of a handful since his birthday. He had that lovely day where almost everything that happened was about him, then suddenly all that special attention evaporated. He put on his thinking cap (which is mostly ginger and comes with two big floppy ears, just like his normal everyday cap) and realized that he could use the “I need the outside loo” signal to get attention any time he wanted.

• Just nicked a sock that needs to be exchanged for a biccie and no-one is interested? No problem: just paw the kitchen baby gate as though you need a pee!
• Want to get comfy on the sofa but your attempts at bed-making have gone badly awry? Paw the kitchen baby gate!
• Just rolled over and displayed all your best bits but nobody has come to tickle your tummy? Paw the kitchen baby gate!

Of course even we lowly humans cottoned on to what he was doing eventually. Realizing that simply ignoring the baby gate signal would eventually result in a wet carpet event, we made the rule that if a furry person requests to go out, then out they go, whether they really want to or not. This new policy is working to curb Biggles’ abuse of the toilet signal, but it is of course pesky, because once you’ve let him out, you must eventually let him back in.

Obviously others felt that Mr. Biggles needed to be taken down a peg or two, because a few days after his birthday he became the victim of a drive-by woofing. There he was, trotting on lead by the side of the road as if he owned the whole neighborhood, when suddenly a Weimaraner stuck his head out of the rear window of a passing car and woofed. It wasn’t just a single woof mind you, it was a full double-barreled and thoroughly disrespectful “Woof! Woof!”. The Weimaraner  was gone long before Biggles could think of a face-saving retort, and he was left feeling more than a little deflated – a situation that could only be remedied by having either another birthday or an early morning trip up a mountain with him serving as chief pathfinder. Since it’s an awfully long time to his next birthday, I took the second option.

For some strange reason Scotland has two mountains called Ben Vorlich, and they’re not even all that far apart. We’ve climbed the one by Loch Earn a couple of times, so this time we made a point of trying the other one, which is by Loch Sloy and Loch Lomond. We set off at from the van at 4am and made it to the summit just before sunrise, at which point a heavy mist blew in from nowhere and temporarily obscured the views.

We hung around for a little while and had treats, then started back down. Periodically windows opened up in the mist to show us what this version of Ben Vorlich has to offer, and when the mist lifted completely we were greeted by a truly beautiful sunny morning.

The full walk is a there-and-back route just over 13km long, with the first four kilometers being very gentle as it follows tarmacked roads towards the Loch Sloy dam. The real climbing is done in just the next two and half-ish kilometers, meaning that this Ben Vorlich is a solid workout, or as Walkhighlands puts it “unremittingly steep and tiring”. My legs certainly felt it, but despite their advanced years Beanie and Biggles didn’t seem to; they must have climbed the hill twice over as they leaped up the rocky path, ran back to down to check on a sniff they’d missed, then leaped back up again. As we approached the bottom of the hill proper on our way back I was thoroughly cooked and dreading even the easy 4km walk back to the van, while they were still perky and excited.

Right at the bottom we encountered a few unfenced cows munching grass by the road and I was concerned that being so perky, my two little mountaineers might decide to give the cows a good woofing, much like that naughty Weimaraner. I took a moment to impress on them the importance of keeping their furry heads down and their gobs closed, and luckily for me that’s exactly what they did. I’ve a theory that Beagles can understand human language perfectly well, it’s just that when it suits them  (which is admittedly most of the time) they pretend that they can’t :)

Christmas was a pretty drab affair this time around, from both a weather and Beagle perspective. Two new solid memory foam dog beds appeared, and though they’re clearly more comfy than than older beds they replaced (as indicated by a dramatic reduction in the late night bed telling-off routine), they hardly made Beagle eyes light up with joy. Even worse than that, after December 25th the daily “Advent Biccie” program abruptly came to an end, and was not re-instated despite howls of protest from the Beanster.

Advent Biccies should be for life, not just for the lead up to Christmas!

There were however two highlights over the festive period. The first was the introduction of a completely new food item euphemistically labeled “beef rings”. I believe these are actually sections of bovine trachea and they’re so disgusting I couldn’t bring myself to photograph them, but they loosely resemble pieces of vacuum hose that have been given a makeover by the guys behind the Alien movies. The interesting thing about “beef rings” is that there seem to be strict rules about when and how to eat them. If I just grab a couple out of the bag and hand them to Beanie & Biggles, then they just get grabbed and munched noisily on the spot (the cracking gristle noises are not for the squeamish). However, if I serve them up in doggy bowls along with kibble, then both our pups carefully lift the rings out of their bowls, set them to one side and munch through their kibble before chowing down on the rings. They’ve done this several times now so it’s definitely a thing, and they make me feel like a lazy waiter who’s delivered soup and a bread roll together in the bowl rather than presenting the roll on its own side plate. Who knew that Beagles really do have table manners?

The second highlight came with an Amazon delivery just as I was on my way out to the gym. I’d ordered a 12kg sack of kibble and a bag of fish cubes, and as soon as I took possession of the boxes the officers from the local Beagle customs office came to make an inspection. I fully expected that I’d have to move the boxes to the kitchen for safe-keeping, but other than a brief sniff Beanie and Biggles didn’t seem particularly interested, so I just left them in the hall and got on my way. Some short time later Susan heard rummaging noises coming from the hall, but didn’t immediately go to check. When the noises continued and grew to the point that they could not be ignored, Susan found the box of fish cubes doing a tour of the hall as first one Beagle then the other attempted to access the contents. We don’t think anyone succeeded, but there was a sizable hole in the cardboard box and when Susan rescued it, both pups immediately turned their attention to the box of kibble. You know it has to be Christmas when you get a few minutes alone with a box of fish cubes :)

In all respects 2019 started much better than 2018 ended. The drab grey weather cleared and when I took the pups to Loudoun hill for their first big walk of the New Year, it was packed with families. To a Beagle, families mean one thing – lots of dropped food and other tasty items. We went up, down and around the hill a couple of times and by the time we’d finished anything that could be eaten (even though it really shouldn’t be) had been consumed or formally reserved (peed on). The temperature was low throughout, but it felt much warmer in all that winter sun, and the sunset was spectacular.