Slight hiatus in beagle-related drama this week and the main reason for this is that we've had a visitor staying with us this week in the shape of a female Springer Spaniel with the energy of a tightly coiled spring. I'm assuming there's a reason for the name of the breed. Monty's daily snoozing pattern has been completely wrecked. By the end of the week he was looking at us with pleading, slightly reddened eyes, "please take the jumpy dog away!" We were a little concerned (slightly ignorantly) that there'd be some romance whilst we were out of the house but thankfully there was nothing to fear. In my mind, it would be a pretty fearsome looking equation:

Lady spaniel + Monty Beagle = Speagles: energetic AND disobedient; essentially forging a new nightmare breed that would speed up the takeover of the world by cutting down on loss of planning through extensive snoozing.

They must not work this out. It got me thinking about other hypothetical combinations and their characteristics.

Meanwhile Monty has been having a hoot of a time with his new friend. All has been fairly quiet on his ambitious bid to eclipse the human race. She seems to have distracted and exhausted him. In fact, I suspect since I caught him dressing up in his majestic garb, that he has decided to opt for a new tactic: breaking me down systematically through bouts of high level embarrassment. So Exhibit E takes the form of anecdotal evidence. When you read the details, you'll be relieved that that there is no photographic evidence in this instance.

A stroll through a nearby market town with the beagle. A fairly ordinary occurrence. We live in a rural location. The town is small and leafy and surrounded by parks. We started in one of these parks so that Monty would have a chance to relieve himself before we took to the pavement. He happily obliged and we trotted off to pick up one or two things in the town. This was only ever going to consume a small amount of time. But the beagle had an idea.

There's a stretch of road with the some of the slowest and most frustrating traffic lights regulating it. The lights seem to only change weekly and results in an almost permanent line of cars bumper-to bumper along the road. A lot of bored eyes. So imagine how pleased they'd be to have their frustration momentarily alleviated by the sight of a bouncy beagle lolloping down the pavement. Monty scanned the area and realised quickly that all eyes were on him and that 'mummy' was busy carrying a number of items so this was as perfect an opportunity as he was going to get to initiate operation Humiliate: a systematic war of attrition on the dignity and composure of the humans. It's a new and frighteningly effective approach.

Stage one was to weave frantically through my legs causing much amusement I'm sure to the static cars. Almost simultaneously, stage two was to launch into squatting position and start immediate and enthusiastic defecation. With a lead wrapped around my wrist and arms full, I began to scrabble around my person for poopy bags. Not easy. If this wasn't face-flushingly embarrassing enough, he decided to waddle over to the edge of the pavement and turn around to give the line of close traffic a front row view. Forgive the slightly crude subject here but it has to be said he's small dog and must have been storing up every morsel of food for his dirty debut. It was a profoundly prolific portion of poop.

After managing to tidy up after him (I always detect a hint of satisfaction from him during this. If he could laugh, I really think it would sound exactly like Mutley from the good old 'Wacky Races' fame) I scuttled off in a zig-zagging fashion with Monty playing the fun game of trying to dislocate my shoulder pulling and straining on the lead with quick and unpredictable changes of direction. He can walk well on the lead but chooses when to. Meanwhile I was just concentrating on avoiding the looks of the seated audience.

A few days later, I was greeted by a colleague of my husband. The conversation started with, "I saw you walking with your dog, I was stuck in that traffic....."

There was a distinct sound of wheezy laughter....