Miracle Grow

We’re not horticulturists really my husband and I. Our garden is more Sahara than Chelsea and the plant life has a sort of post-apocalyptical look to it but there is one plant that seems to have taken a sudden growth spurt. Where once there was a fairly meek, spindly looking shoot, there is now a distinctly thicker, healthier chilli plant. It’s evolved from lack lustre to luscious in just a few weeks. The question is why. We live in damp England and we’re enjoying the usual pendulum-like summer weather that swings from blisteringly warm to wintry cold on the hour each day. We’re certainly more chilly than chilli. So how was this chilli plant suddenly thriving in our erratic British climate?

This would have remained a mystery had I not caught sight of the pesky little beagle out there early yesterday morning and again today and I counted only three paws on the ground. The fourth leg was stretched haughtily into the air in a ballerina pose whilst the telling amber stream arced with impressive precision into the centre of the pot.

Mystery solved.

The only question that remains is whether to tell the husband who has been painstakingly nurturing his seeds into life and wondering why oh why they weren’t growing well. Having moved them “into more direct sunlight” he commented on the sudden and vast improvement and his little face has been the picture of pride. Should I let him believe in his gardening know-how and decision-making skills or spill the truth and dash his confidence? There is the argument that it does no harm to the plant and won’t actually affect the health of the consumer but in my mind now, every little chloroplast or mitochondrion will be saturated with the pee pee of Monty. Each miniscule membrane is passing his water so to speak.

What a dilemma. I’ll be holding back on the spicy food for a little while I think.

Monty goes for a walk.

It's been fairly quiet in the Monty camp the past few months and little to report. I took him into a school recently to take part in a long country walk and he was really quite well behaved! Thinking about the main potential embarrassment being the poop-scooping inevitability, I decided to take him out for a walk beforehand and let him 'relieve' himself. He did this with his usual joie de vivre (!) and off we trotted to the event.

I think he finally gave up at the fifth poop. It’s never an event in itself to cause facial reddening until you’re being watched by swarming teenagers doing the one-two-invert-plastic-bag shuffle. Eugh.

Anyway, to his little beagle credit, he trotted along the seven miles along country paths with fairly few incidents. The only problem in his tiny mind was that I was keeping him on the lead; something he’s not used to on long walks. He kept lurching forward to be let off. He looked just like those mammoth muscle-building men who drag whole trucks behind them with a just a skipping rope over their shoulder. He was hunched forward and straaaaining the whole way. To add to the tension, I’d bought a cheaper than cheap extendable lead from www.ineffectualpetproducts.com (having now exhausted a great deal of my salary on leads that he just merrily chomps right through). Unfortunately for me, it wouldn’t hold a sloth with a hangover. The locking mechanism gave up as soon as he thought about moving forward and made the loudest noise possible each time the lead was ripped out. It sounded like how I’d imagine a goliath angry duck might sound if someone mentioned plum sauce. After a while, I decided to just keep the lead at full stretch to avoid the angry duck (and to stop scaring the poor kiddies with the noise) which led to me walking with my arm out at full stretch as if pointlessly pointing the way or, when the beeg decided to stop for a little sniff (which each time caused a little pile up of children bumping into each other and stepping over the oblivious and content sniffing below) leaving the slackened lead to weave its way in and out of the muddy mire and ‘country pancakes’.

Note: for our American friends, a country pancake is a euphemistic term for grass...after several hours of digestion by a cow. And this was pancake city.

Oh and it was raining. All day.

Apart from this however, he’s been quiet. No plotting. No destruction (well, it’s all comparative isn’t it?) and no interesting stories of attempts of world domination. The next big day in his calendar is this weekend however. The local villages all host various festivals throughout the summer and there’s a dog show this coming Sunday with all sorts of categories ranging from ‘Best Trick’ to ‘Cutest Puppy’ and ‘Waggiest Tail’. Seen as Monty’s best trick (and let’s be honest, ONLY trick) is to ‘sit’, I don’t envisage a standing ovation and a fast-tracking to Crufts anytime soon so I think we may try him out for the others. I might pitch for a new category. Perhaps, 'Most like a piranha award' or 'Quickest to find the algae-covered ditch'?
Watch this space....

Exhibit F may well be the final straw.

Late afternoon. The midday burning sun has given way to a glorious orange glow; everything looks like it's been dipped in nectar. Warmth coils around bare skin. The heat so comforting it hums. A group of men have escaped the clutches of their employment for the day and are relishing a game of football. Friendly jeers. Squinting eyes in the light. Scissor kicks of limbs. The dull thudding of the ball.

The ball.

Beyond the scene, beyond the goal posts and between some trees in the near distance stands the stout figure of a young beagle by the name of Monty. A four-legged ball bandit. His head follows the movement. His eyes reflect the ball. No sound can distract him from the plump leather delight he has in sight. Ball. Ball. Ball.

Within seconds he's in amongst the throng of men; lolloping over with his cutest uncoordinated lollop. They pause to admire the plucky young pup who's joined their numbers. He spins. He leaps. He even throws in a few tail-chasing antics to delight them but little do they realise, as they grin and coo, that he snakes ever closer to the now stationary globe. The glorious orb.

Then he has it. He's off. Holding his prize aloft with pride. Zig-zagging victoriously with a jaunty, frankly arrogant, run.

I chase. I lunge. I dart. I try to bribe with meatish treats.

He darts. He twists. He turns. He even seems to grin despite his anaconda-like grip on the ball.

TWENTY MINUTES I spent chasing that dog. The manners and chivalry of the men was starting to ebb when the sight of another dog at the other end of the field finally encouraged him to relinquish the stolen property which was by then convincingly punctured. Whilst he sped off to antagonise the poor unsuspecting Labrador, I was left to blushingly apologise and then give chase once more, lead and poop bags in my flailing arms over to the next exciting episode.

I think it is well and truly game, set and match. I give in. You win Monty.

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....

Exhibit D: suggest you read first and then have a looksy at the picture inserted.

Having started documenting Monty (and therefore all beagles) more and more has become apparent that I may not have noticed otherwise. Already since the pillow-destroying incident he has betrayed his inner ambition most blatantly. Picture the scene, you return home after being out for no more than an hour to a snoozing beagle on your sofa (as already discussed, this has now become normal/ impossible to change).

Note: he had already chewed a hole through the centre of a blanket I'd given him and I scratched this up to general beagle destructive behaviour. Although interestingly he managed, again, to do this without me or the hubby noticing as if he was slyly picking one thread at a time, pinging them between his teeth with one eye on the door for either of us. If our shadows darkened the door he'd scoop up the blanket with his front paws until the coast was clear to continue. It's like a scene from The Shawshank Redemption, or Pawshank Redemption (apologies).

On entering the room, he slunk off the sofa only to reveal he'd 'slipped' his head through the hole and was effectively wearing the blanket like a royal gown. EXHIBIT D below of the Regal Beagle. There can be no clearer evidence of his practising his desired future role: King of the World. See how he nonchalantly sits in his robe peering off his left as if nothing is happening. Will keep an eye on other household items. One day I fear to return to the beagle sitting on top the sofa with a lampshade-styled crown. Since this incident late last evening, I've noticed a (very typical) condescending look in his eyes. It's the look of superiority and contempt but something more...he knows I'm on to him!

Then there's the opposing argument that beagles are in fact a little dim after all as this particular photograph would suggest.



The heart is in it, the brain is not. Particularly like the non-plussed look of the cat who is peering down with haughty sympathy. 'You poor, poor simple being. Go chase a stick.'

The case continues

Exhitbit B takes the form of photographic evidence. Taken this morning, the innocent looking beagle poses in front of the back door. Through this aperture, the remnants of a pillow can be seen. The pillow has clearly been savaged and its innards strewn about the garden in what I don't doubt was a mad, dizzyingly fun escapade. The interesting point is that it was carried out with such stealth and cunning that it went totally undetected. Notice the beagle holding his gaze with the camera as if completely unaware of the carnage behind him. 'Me? No, no... there are some particularly vicious birds out this morning. I wouldn't be hanging out any washing if I were you. Those birds. Tut. While we're on the subject, I think I saw a few fly into your sock drawer should you notice anything untoward a little later on....'

Exhibit C is the mid-woof picture. A lapse on Monty's part there I think. Usually he poses for the camera in cute head-tilts so that anyone glancing through pictures of his Montiness would assume he is the epitome of calm and canine delight. Rare documentation of the noisy truth! The case continues...