Double Disobedience!

This picture has nothing to do with the Story but I like his profile!

I got home from work with Charlie last night and while I was pottering around the kitchen I let Charlie into the garden to play. About 5 minutes later I popped outside to play with him but he didn’t come when I called, off I wandered looking for him when I had a stop and gasp moment; the side gate was open – wide open! This posed two problems. One, that someone has clearly been in my garden when I have been at work and two, Charlie has gone!

Out I went calling and shouting for him, shaking the biscuit tin, but 5 minutes is a long time for a beagle with a sense of adventure!  Whenever he gets out my first instinct is always to check the road, make sure that he has not had an accident. I live on a private track off of quite a busy road. There is always a big relief when I see that that is clear. Just as my friend pulled into the track in her car I spotted Charlie bolting towards me heading towards the road. “Quick!” He ducked to my right into the plough field so I borrowed Archie, her Border Terrier and used him as a honey trap. Charlie may be able to ignore me calling and resist the biscuit tin but he cannot resist the chance to play with a new dog!

caught in the act!

Not content with nearly giving me a heart attack, It would appear that Charlie has a taste for cabbages and tomatoes – we are back to the vegetarian beagle! Once I got him home, Charlie ate half of my dinner that was sat on the chopping board. The dinner that I had not been able to finish cooking because I was too busy looking for the little runaway! I could hear him int he kitchen and caught him red handed pilfering it from the side. once I chased him off though, he continued to eat the vegetables he had liberated from the chopping board, what a monster! 



eating the evidence

I took a picture of the chopping board because you can even see where he has been licking the board to get the food. He jumps up and if he cant reach the food he twists his head to the side and uses his tongue to edge the food towards him. It is quite ingenious if you forget that he is doing all of this in order to eat the food you have prepared for yourself!

what is left of my dinner!







A Vegetarian Guard Dog?

I was playing in the garden with Charlie on Saturday. We have quite a big garden with trees and big flower beds so our favourite game is for me to throw one of his toys for him to chase and then I run and hide and he has to find me – you have to be very quick or he gets you before you can duck! Whilst running around the garden Charlie will grab a selection of his toys as he gets more and more excited and just bring anything back. I noticed on one return trip he had something I did not recognise, something green and quite long. I snuck up on him and slowly realised that he had a cucumber!

I grow a few vegetables in my garden and I have busted Charlie chewing on the beans as they dangle from the plant. And I have busted a friends dog eating raspberries off of the bush before. But it would seem that Charlie picked the cucumber off of the plant! And was running around with it, eating it! Who knew I had a vegetarian Beagle?!

In a separate, and I am assuming unrelated incident, Charlie decided that he could hear a noise in the night. I wouldn’t mind but he was asleep with me when at 3.30am he started barking and running up and down the corridor. He wouldn’t actually go downstairs but then stood at the top barking. So I had to actually get up, turn on the lights, show him that there was nothing there and then turn everything off and go back to bed. But then he heard another noise and repeated the whole process! Why Charlie why? On a school night! Needless to say, when my alarm when off this morning, I did not feel very refreshed!

Back from hols!

So both Charlie and Nanna survived my holiday, I am very impressed. He did get up to a fair amount of mischief though. The one I got into the most trouble over was that he ran away. This is not unusual Charlie behaviour, except he ran away at about 11pm and didn’t come home until 3.30am! he then made himself known by whining at the back door until Nanna got up and let him in. Nanna says she is never having another dog – looks like it might be kennels if I want to go skiing next year (not that I have any goggles!).

Charlie was so excited when we got home he couldn’t keep still. I stayed at my parents house as we were back to late and he kept trotting from bedroom to bedroom to make sure that everyone was staying where they had said that they would. He also took to licking the duvet on my bed which was a bit weird!

I dont normally dress like this - it was fancy dress!

 

Last weekend I attended the Cambridge Dragon Boat Festival; it is a really good even raising money for charity. I was drumming on our boat and I shouted so much that I lost my voice. I had to go to work on Monday sounding like a 14 year old boy! We had great fun though and Charlie was very impressed at all of the cheering so he joined in with lots of barking! He wouldn’t even sit still for this photo, he insisted on howling! He was very, very tired when we got home!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

He also got his first ride in mums new car. Fitted with his harness and seatbelt, saftey first of course! but he was loving being able to see out and propped himself up on the window!

I cant wait to borrow it and wind down the windiws so his ears can flap in the wind!

 

 

 

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!