Party for one!

School last week was a revelation, Charlie can indeed remember how to behave! He did his ‘sit’, ‘wait’ and ‘down’ like a pro, he even did ‘away’ and ‘back’ like a gun dog! We had lots of fun doing agility; though I was not silly enough to take his led off on his first try for 4 months! But he has still been up to his usual tricks. It would seem that Charlie may know how to behave but he chooses not to. 

 

Whilst driving him home from a sleep over at mums he decided to rip up his travel bed in the back of the car. We’ve had that bed since he was a pup and he has never chewed it, he often takes it into the garden, has weed on it a few times but never eaten it. Until this week! What adds insult to injury with this pic is that you can see he is thinking of jumping out of the boot and running off!

 

Other than that we had a fairly quiet week but boy has he made up for it this weekend.Yesterday afternoon he disappeared and it was too quiet. Low and behold I found Charlie climbing over the sofa in my office on the hunt for Able & Cole boxes. He knows he is not allowed up there but he is pretty agile, he likes to climb over the back of the sofa like a cat and away he goes! he knows he's busted in this picture.

Last night I went out for dinner and when I came home it would appear that Charlie had thrown himself a party. The duvet was back out, logs had been removed from the log basket with pieces everywhere, and to top it all, he had somehow gotten into the cupboard and eaten my ski goggles. He has had his eye on those for a long time; whenever I am in that cupboard or getting my ski stuff out he always tries to steal them. It would seem that his patience had paid off. I do find it slightly ironic that the goggles he stole are made by Sinner!

I am going on holiday tomorrow and Charlie cannot come. My Grandmother is going to look after him for me and I have to say I am a little nervous. My Granny is more than capable but Charlie is such a minx I do worry. I am starting to miss him already so we had extra-long cuddles this morning whilst I was writing this. But in true Charlie style, he waited until I was distracted and then fished a pair of pants out of the laundry basket and started to chew. Why must dogs chew underwear?

An Incredibly Eventful Weekend

Charlie and Rusty

You can say many things about a beagle but dull is never one of them! This weekend Charlie has been so busy I have barely been able to keep up.

 Saturday morning began as it always does, tea in bed with Charlie, but Charlie disappeared under the bed. He was far too quiet so I had to check out what he was up to. Low and behold Charlie had found a sock to chew and was merrily munching away. Not only that but when I stuck my head under my bed he started to howl at me as if I was intruding his space!

Since the weather was so lovely we walked the mile or so to see my horse Fleur. Charlie walked on his lead with me and when I was working Fleur in the arena I tied him to the fence in the shade where I could see him. I had put his harness on so that I could clip him to that and not his collar; all very sensible I thought.  Everything was going swimmingly, Fleur was being good, Charlie was being good, other than the constant howling in objection to being tied up and not allowed to run free but I am happy with small victories! We then started to walk back to Fleurs field together; a picture of the English countryside.  Horse, Hound and Sunshine. But I hadn’t clipped the lead back onto Charlie’s collar and he doesn’t like to walk on his harness so we performed a very good stop and sit so I could switch over. He was even doing a very good wait until Fleur put her nose down to sniff him. He jumped a metre to his left and then realised he was free!  Within 10 seconds his naughty Jack Russell Friend had appeared - he must have a special 6^th sense for knowing when Charlie has got loose. They were gone. Full gallop across the field, into the woods and across the Wheat field. I have lost Charlie enough times now to know that there is no point chasing him. I shouted, I called, I walked away but he was having too much fun. So off I walked, lead in hand, to tell my neighbour that our dogs had gone M.I.A.

Luckily I have very lovely neighbours; I had an appointment that I had to go to so Diana went to look for the pesky pups. About three hours later I got a call to say that they had been found chasing rabbits at the neighbouring farm and that Diana would put Charlie into my garden to wait for me. Charlie has a kennel, lots of shade and water so he was fine to wait for me there. From this picture I think he knows that he should not have run off!

Sunday morning whilst I was busy upstairs, Charlie decided to do a little redecorating and took some of the cushions into the garden. I am not sure why he has struck this pose but he was like this when I went into the garden and sat like it for quite some time.

After replacing the soft furnishings where they came from we went to visit my mum for a quick cuppa. I am always careful to shut the door behind me when I come into the kitchen before I let Charlie off his lead. We were chatting away when mum noticed that the front door was open. Before I could move Charlie spotted it too and was off. Straight across the field of cows to get as mucky as possible. My quick cup of tea ended up being a 3 hour stay while I waited for Charlie to come back from his adventure. He always comes home eventually but I worry so much that he will get stolen or cause an accident. As per usual he was filthy and stinking so had to have a bath before I took him to my works Family Fun Day where he caused more mischief!

Obviously being a beagle he barked and howled all the afternoon despite the heat. There is so much going on and he wants to be involved in all of it! Mostly he had to stay on the lead so he didn’t steal hot dogs off of the children as he has learnt that they are perfect height for him to help himself but I did let him off for 5 minutes when his friend Harry Bear came to play. After a mad dash around the entire area jumping over peoples picninc rugs and under all of the tables and chairs he found one of the bin bags and was apparently head in, rummaging for food, throwing the plastic cups and plates to the side as they got in his way before I spotted him and stopped the binge. He did make a new friend in Rusty but I think that might have a lot to do with the ice cream that he was licking his lips for; he even managed to nip the end off of the cone when no one was looking!

All this in just two days! He sure knows how to fit a lot in! Tonight we have our first Club class at dog school; to say that I am nervous would be an understatement! Please don’t embarrass me, please don’t embarrass me!

Picnic in the car

Charlie and the Bear

Last night I was meeting a friend in The Lion pub, a very friendly place where dogs are welcome and often greeted with a treat. I went straight from work so took Charlie with me. I am getting more organised when I take Charlie to the pub now and generally arm myself with his dinner which I can piece feed him to keep him sitting and quiet. I wasn’t just my friend who was coming though, she was bringing Charlies friend Harry Bear, a lovely Flat Coat. Unfortunately Charlie was not able to contain his excitement and because I stopped him wrestling Bear to the ground he sat and howled. Now friendly as this pub is, I was quite sure that the patrons did not want to drink their beer to the dulcet tones of a hound so he had to go into the car where he wouldn’t disturb anyone.

After my drink I was pleasantly surprised to find Charlie sat in the boot where I had put him; maybe he had actually stayed put?! Alas no. Once I opened the drivers’ door I could see that Charlie had decided to have a picnic. Please note that my drivers' seat does not have interesting shading; that was the water that Charlie managed to open! The advantage of Charlie’s consistently destructive behaviour is that I am always prepared so I did have a towel in the car; but I did still have a slightly damp bum when I got home!

Charlies Big City Adventure



My Sister was 30 this weekend and as she is quite pregnant she decided to celebrate with a picnic in the park, even Charlie was invited! So Saturday morning we packed up the car and off we went to Ladywell fields. Charlie has worked out how to jump from the boot into the car and then runs around causing havoc so I have decided to embrace his choice of seat and bought him a harness so that he can sit in the front but be attached to the seatbelt and not run around the car. Charlie loved it. He was curled up for the motorway but as soon as we got into town I opened the window and he had his head out sniffing the air and barking at people that talked to him when we were stopped at the lights.

Bold as Charlie likes to think he is it would seem he is a bit of a jessy with tunnels. It had never occurred to me but we have obviously not driven through one before because as soon as we hit the Blackwall Tunnel he tried to leap on my lap and was very frightened. But he managed to settle and sat quietly with me chatting away to him like he was any other traveling companion! Of course as soon as we arrived at my sisters house he did a quick check of the house running into every room, looking under every bed and chair. It was suggested that perhaps this is like a Police sweep of the area, checking for intruders and perhaps he shouts ‘clear’ after every room. However I think it is more likely that he is just that nosey!

Walking on pavements is not something that Charlie is particularly experienced at and he tried to turn into every gateway and because I was worried about loosing him, he did have to stay on his extending lead. But he loved all of the new smells and people. At first he barked a lot probably because he didn’t know what was going on and who all these people were – being on his lead, he wasn’t able to carry out his usual security check! But he did settle down, unfortunately once he was comfortable he decided that this was his park and he was going to bark at all of the strangers walking past!

Picnic casualties were quite low, 1 pork pie and 2 empty cupcake cases. He even managed to join in a game of the boys football whilst on his lead with Phil which he loved. We also met 3 other beagles from Blythe Hill Beagles and Charlie was very excited to meet a fellow hound. Charlie was very pooped after a long day and slept all the way home – even through the tunnel!

Relaxing Sunday lunch

I am very much of the opinion that even if Charlie is not perfectly behaved I must still take him out to places until he learns to behave. Otherwise how will he ever learn? And I will get stuck with a dog that I can’t take anywhere! So on this basis, when I was invited to lunch at my friend Amys yesterday, I thought I would take Charlie too… (the thing is; you all know what is coming, but for some reason I never seem to!).

In preparation for the excitement I thought I would take him for a long walk with Kelsae so that he would be tired – I did not factor in how filthy they would get so when I got back to my car I have to wash Charlie down with Baby wipes!

The lunch started with us sitting outside having a lovely drink in the sunshine with canapés which were very delicious so Charlie decided to help himself.

Once we went inside, we were watching some of the tennis on TV. My mum asked Sarah “do you want to sit down” and patted the cream sofa. Charlie of course assumed she was talking to him so jumped up, knocking Sarahs drink flying and covering himself, luckily not the sofa, in Champagne! I think had to wrestle him off of the sofa before anyone could notice!

Once we sat down for lunch Charlie took the opportunity to go exploring in my friends house, looking around all of the bedrooms. When one of the children came downstairs crying, it would become apparent that Charlie was partial to a My Little Pony or two! After I insisted that he come downstairs, he jumped up on one of the chairs and tried to help himself to one of the kids roast beef dinners.

We got about 20 minutes of peace before there was more crying and it would appear Charlie had decided that a child carrying a cupcake is fair game and helped himself. He also jumped up and stole another off of the table!

At this point I thought perhaps Charlie needed some time out so I popped him in the car so he could have a sleep. Once I went to leave it would appear that he had gotten a little bored and chewed a few items I had left in my car.

Casualties from the day:
·         2 x Smoked Salmon canapés
·         1 x Sofa
·         2 x My Little Ponies
·         1 x Babies Dummy
·         ½ x roast dinner
·         2 x cupcakes
·         1 x riding hat
·         1 x Welly
·         1 x cool bag

Hyper Dog!

Charlie ate about half a kilo of fudge On Wednesday; he stole if off of the kitchen table and then went a bit nuts – probably a sugar rush! He ran about barking when there was nobody there to bark at. This video I took, he continued to do that for about an hour! and yes those are more feathers on the floor!

This morning he also stole my lunch. I let him out, gave him his breakfast and while he was eating started to make my sandwich. I sliced the bread and then went to the fridge for some cheese. Whilst my back was turned Charlie jumped up stole the bread and ran outside to eat it. The cheeky monkey then came back inside to finish his breakfast – what a monster!

Sleepy Monster

Charlie has some interesting sleep poses. He likes to have his head covered and will frequently try and snuggle into bed with you, or without you! If he does manage to get into bed, he always wants to be as close as possible. Snuggling right up!

 

When he was a puppy I collected him in my Able & Cole box, and for a while he used to insist on sleeping in it; even when his bed was there for him.

He is also a fan of lying on his back, ears spread out like a bat with no concern for modesty at all!

But sometimes he lies like a Corpse with his legs straight out.

When I light the fire I have to keep pulling him back because he lies far too close! 

I have also spotted him at my mums where he lies on the back of the sofa like a cat.

Charlie is a bit of a contortionist!

But Mostly he is just really, really cute!