Today was racing day. We headed up nice and early so that Beanie and Biggles could get in some private runs before racing kicked off. In the first run we gave the Biggly Boy a 9 yard head start and he trounced Beanie! So he’s definately getting faster!

We hadn’t planned to enter them into the propper races but as it was the Scottish Beagle Club annual BBQ very few Beagles turned up. It was just Beanie, Biggles, a little dog that was there for the first time and a very BIG boy called Brodie who’d been once or twice before. We all figured that Brodie and the other little boy (who’s name I don’t remember) wouldn’t be able to keep up with Beanie so there was no fear of any inexperienced dogs interfering with her. It was a great opportunity to start building up Beanie’s tollerance for inexperienced dogs on the race track without any risk of setbacks. We were all in for a BIG surprise but it worked out very well!

In the first race all of the dogs started from scratch (i.e. they started on the same line). Beanie got a very slightly late start and Brodie quickly tucked in behind the lure and ran like the wind. All Beanie could see was a big Beagle bum and as she tried to find space on the track where she had a clear view of the lure. The other little boy bounced around excitedly getting in her way. My heart sunk. This was exactly the situation we didn’t want. But then I realised her body language was a bit different this time. Instead of looking as if she’d gone in a huff and given up she dug in and fought her way through to find a clear ‘lane’. Brodie was rapidly dissapearing into the distance. He had a huge lead but she and little Biggles chased hard and looked happy and confident.

Brodie in white, Beanie in red, Biggles in blue

Novice Brodie wins by a mile!

Beanie in second place and Biggles in third place

For the next race we decided to start Beanie in lane two and Brodie in lane one. This gave Beanie a better chance of tucking in behind the lure. This would put her in a strong position where she didn’t have to fight her way accross lanes for a view of the lure. Hopefully it would help build her confidence. Brodie did exactly the same thing as Beanie had in the previous race – he ran across the track trying to get a good view of the lure. But Brodie wasn’t put off by other dogs in his path – it helps to be big! Beanie managed to hang on to a very tiny lead until they neared the finish line. Then Brodie’s thoughts started to turn to how he was going to get this pesky little dog out of the way so that he could get in behind the lure. Strictly speaking he should be focusing on the lure and not looking at Beanie (but it’s perfectly normal for inexperienced Beagles to do this). Beanie was put off by this and backed away at first (no doubt because of her experiences earlier in the season with some particularly naughty Beagles). But then she gave him a quick verbal warning and held her ground. Brodie crossed the line first again, but Beanie had faced her demons and they were still good pals!

Beanie asserts herself calmly instead of taking the huff!

In the final race Biggles and the other little boy were given a sizeable head start. Beanie and Brodie were setting a very fast pace and the others weren’t getting a look in. Brodie’s dad “accidently” gave Brodie a late start and Beanie got a two yard advantage. Initially, Brodie closed the gap a little and was hot on Beanie’s heels. But Beanie dug in and fought hard to maintain her lead.

I washed my face this morning and couldn’t do a thing with it!

As they approached the finish line Beanie managed to open up her lead a little and won by a good three yards. A big boost for her as she didn’t know she’d been helped a little by Brodie’s dad (traitor!).

It was a fantastic confidence booster for Beanie and a great lesson in how to calmly deal with dogs on the race track that don’t yet know all the rules. Beanie loved every minute and was absolutely desparate to race again, but Brodie had to go home. Brodie is quite an athlete and in fair races I think he’s going to be a very hard dog for anyone to beat – especially when he’s got a bit more practice under his belt. But Beanie is going to thoroughly enjoy trying! The race officials are talking about keeping experienced dogs separate from the new dogs which I think is a very good idea. We won’t be in too much of a rush to enter Beanie into propper races as we don’t want any setbacks but we’ll certainly try and organise lots of races with dogs that she’s comfortable with.

A big thank you to Brodie and his mum and dad for helping out our little girl!

Flyball wasn’t on this Sunday so it was an easy decision to take Beanie and Biggles racing. It was a warm day, so a great opportunity to show off their trendy new cooling jackets:

I think Paul’s secretly missing seeing his little girl winning the official races, but there’s no doubt that Beanie and Biggles find their little private races much more enjoyable and rewarding. There’s no risk of having to fend of an aggressive or unruly dog, and we can give Biggles a head start so that every race ends up as a thrilling neck and neck battle at the finish line.

We headed up to Kincardine Bridge nice and early so that they could have some private races while Scooby was testing the lure. In their first race we gave Biggles a 15 yard head start fully expecting Beanie to overtake him. In actual fact he beat her by a good 2 yards. It gave him a huge confidence boost and made things really interesting for Beanie in the next race.

Biggles winning a race and looking like he’s wearing a muscle suit!

This time Beanie overtakes Biggles despite a 9 yard head start

Biggles really digs in and trys to catch her

Currently Beanie’s beating Biggles by about 12 yards over a 160 yard course. But he’s really starting to gain confidence now so I think we’ll see him closing the gap over the coming weeks.

While the Whippet and Beagle racing got underway we created a secure enclosure and set up our portable agility equipment. We then spent the afternoon having short strolls with the dogs and having short little agility, obedience and trick training practice sessions.

Beanie in action:

And Biggles having a little try:

In return for use of the field we let anyone that’s interested have a go on the agility course. It’s an arangement that suits everyone. Here’s Murphy in action:

When the Beagle and Whippet racing finished up Beanie and Biggles were watching the track intently so we gave them one last race – their best of the day!

More photos here

It’s been a busy week, so I’ll do a quick recap.

We were spoilt for choice on Sunday – Beagle Racing, Flyball AND Lure Coursing. We eventually decided to pop in and watch the lure coursing with a view to taking part at next month’s meeting. It looked fabulous – acres of securely fenced fields overlooking stunning countryside. And the best part for our naughty Beagles….you get to chase a bit of real deer skin all over the field and no one tells you off!!!

We only got to watch a couple of races and then we made the 15 minute trip down the road to Beagle Racing at Kincardine Bridge. Beanie’s favorite lure driver, Scooby, had arranged to meet us nice and early before official racing started so Beanie and Biggles could get some private runs. They loved it!!!

They actually had quite a few runs throughout the course of the day and we took our agility equipment and flyball box along too so there was loads of activity for them.

The rest of the week has been sheer and utter chaos!

Beanie hadn’t been enjoying racing and whilst we were certain it was due to interference from inexperienced dogs (she still loves solo races and races with well behaved dogs), one of the Whippet owners was sure that Beanie was jaded from too much activity. He thought Beanie and Biggles would rediscover the sheer joy of racing if we didn’t let them off lead for 3 days before race day. Our first thought that this person didn’t know Beagles well – our two keep going for ever and never show signs of getting tired or bored. We’d actually been thinking that we needed to step up their off-lead exercise! But we also figured that there was a remote possibility that he was right and it would do no harm to try (Mistake Number One). We weren’t prepared to keep them on lead for a full three days – our house would be wrecked by day two! We decided to give them a very short off-lead spell on Friday and kept them on-lead on Saturday.

Things didn’t seem too bad on Friday and Saturday. We took them for lovely long on-lead walks in parks that they weren’t familiar with. They didn’t get to stretch their legs and run, but they were mentally stimulated. So far so good.

The first little warning bells started to ring on Sunday at the racing when Beanie wasn’t keen to go back on lead at the end of her races. Now at this point it’s worth pointing out that after months of hard work we were able to walk Beanie and Biggles off-lead and keep them in sight for 99% of the time. They’d occasionally run off for a sprint about the trees but would come running right back to us within two or three minutes.

By Monday morning they were both so stir crazy that we decided we couldn’t cope with them both off-lead together – separate walks were called for (Mistake Number Two). Paul let Beanie off-lead in the meadow while I walked around the park with Biggles on-lead. After about half an hour I got a frantic phone call from a very stressed sounding Paul. “I’ve had enough – time to swap dogs!”. The second he’d unclipped the lead she’d disappeared over the horizon at top speed. She came back a couple of times, swiped some treats then scarpered again. The meadow is very safe so we weren’t overly concerned about anything happening to her (and they do have GPS tracking collars), but it’s the last thing in the world we want to happen as she’s now learnt a new unwanted behaviour.

We swapped dogs and Biggles was as good as gold off lead. The rest of the walk was uneventful, but by the time evening came Biggles started to get very restless. As time went by he became more and more obsessed with humping Beanie. And she wasn’t exactly complaining. This carried on the whole of the next day – much to the neighbors amusement. (They are both neutered.)

On Tuesday Paul announced that he wasn’t letting Beanie off-lead on her own without me there. I wasn’t prepared to do it myself either so we decided to try letting them both off together. We unclipped the leads and they both disappeared over the horizon…this time with Biggles providing sonar tracking with his constant “aaarrrff, aaarrrfff”. Then we discovered a new problem. Biggles couldn’t keep up with Beanie and when he lost her he panicked. He didn’t hear our calls – he just ran frantically in any direction desperately looking for Beanie.

By Wednesday I’d come up with a master plan to regain control. We headed for Wizard of Paws and bought lots of toys and goodies that would ensure that we were more exciting to our dogs than the call of the wild. I also picked up a couple of 15m training lines. “They’ll tangle around the dogs legs” said Paul. “You’re always so negative!” I replied. We arrived at the park with:

2 X Stir Crazy Beagles
2 X Toy Sheep (we figured they’d love to rip them apart)
2 X 50 m Training Lines
1 X tea towel tied to a string
1 X very long knotted rope
1 X huge bag of assorted premium treats (cheese, roast lamb, sausage etc)
1 X air kong sausage shaped thing on a rope
2 X 3ft long pizzle sticks (dried bulls penis).

We certainly learned something new that day – If there’s one thing harder than trying to keep control of two stir-crazy beagles it’s trying to keep control of two stir-crazy beagles whilst carrying a whole bunch of junk around with you!!

We decided to start out by just letting them off-lead to blow off a bit of steam. They sprinted round the meadow, round the trees, across the golf-course….and eventually came back to us. I grabbed their collars and held on tight while Paul sprinted across the meadow trailing a tea-towel on the end of a string and ‘whooping’ like an idiot. The dogs went ballistic and eventually I let them go. It worked a treat. They sprinted around the field after him baying at the top of their lungs. “Fanstastic!” we thought – “we’ve found a game that holds more appeal than the call of the wild”. They’d caught the tea-towel within 30 seconds and I called the dogs back to me so that Paul could get another head start. Beanie came instantly, but Biggles held on for an extra chew at the tea-towel. When he finally let go of the tea towel and looked around for Beanie the daft pup couldn’t see her. He started looking around frantically. “She’s over here with me Biggles…come!”. He ignored me and started sprinting off at top speed, desperately in search of his sister. In the chaos that followed I let go of Beanie and she sprinted off in the opposite direction.

Half an hour later….

We finally had both dogs by our sides. They were puffing and panting a little so I figured it was time to bring out the pizzle sticks. I sat down on the grass with a giant bulls penis in each hand. Beanie and Biggles lay contentedly beside me and chewed. After a good 10 minutes of tranquility I saw another dog approaching so hurried to get the pizzel sticks away from the dogs before they caused a fight. Beanie and Biggles disappeared over the horizon, “aaarfff, aaarrfff, arrrrfff……..

10 minutes later….

Beanie and Biggles came sprinting towards us with big, happy grins and waggy tails. Time to try out the training lines. “I don’t like this” said Paul. “They’ll get tangled around their legs”. “Don’t be silly” I replied. I clipped a line to each collar and instantly the lines were tangled around their legs, necks, tails, bodies….and our legs, arms, necks, bodies. Paul and I frantically got to work trying to untangle them before one of them sprinted off after another dog and injured him/herself. Meanwhile, Beanie and Biggles had spotted the giant bulls penis’ sticking out of the top of my ruck stack and as we fought to untangle them they leapt frantically in an attempt to secure their prize. At which point we saw a couple of fun loving dogs sprinting towards us to see what all the commotion was about. The toy sheep and tea-towel tumbled out of my rucksack.

10 minutes later…

Beanie and Biggles are untangled, the other dogs are gone and we’ve got all our junk back in our ruck sack. Everything is calm and under control. We decided to head down to the river to hunt for fish (we throw dried fish in the river for them). They know the fishing game and knew that was where we were heading so we figured they’d be fine off lead. And they were. They trotted happily along beside us. Then at the last minute Beanie sprinted off. Biggles didn’t spot which way she went and frantically ran off in the other direction, “arrff, aarrff, arrrrfffing” at the top of his lungs……

Beagles…who’d have ’em!!!??? Today we’re taking them on entirely separate walks.

More pictures from the racing here.