Beagles continue to follow me

They’re everywhere. If it’s not enough that there’s a real one at home, anything and everything beagle-related is now being sent to me by an ever increasing number of contacts, twitter followers and blog readers. The morning after the night before (the Westminster Dog Show) was particularly gruelling.

Here’s the latest:

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Which, given my new-found culinary prowess (i.e. I didn’t kill those friends that came round for dinner), has given me a wonderful idea for the braai this weekend.

Break out the Hendo’s!

No recharge available

We forgot to charge the beagle before this afternoon’s loadshedding.

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There’s not much we can do about it now until the power returns, but hopefully this will serve as a warning to other beagle owners in South Africa to not make the same silly mistake.

And no, I’m not going to tell you where the plug goes.

#ChargeYourBeagle

Moar exercise!

Even after yesterday’s exertions, there was still time for a bit more healthy wandering this morning – this time inland with the beagle and the kids in Newlands Forest.
Considering that this is virtually on our doorstep and I run past it fairly regularly (I drive past it even more often), it’s amazing that this was my first time wandering up past the fire base and into the forest proper.

  

The lower areas are pretty ugh. They were busy and parking was packed, despite it being early. Much like in Tokai, the dog owners (not us) don’t clear up after themselves, so given that the first thing the dogs do when they get out of the car is defaecate, it’s fairly unpleasant around the car park. But once you’re far from the madding crowds and their lack of concern and respect for other people, and into the peace and quiet of the trees, it’s all good. We didn’t even get mugged.

Porcupine quills and feathers told us what we could have seen, but the fresh air and filtered sunshine was enough to keep us all happy. Not knowing what to expect, I didn’t take my camera (I know, this doesn’t make sense to me either), but next time (and there will be a next time), maybe I will.

Still, there are a few photos of the weekend on Flickr.

Beagle video

The beagle helped itself to an oven glove yesterday, several (or more) pieces of which I found in the garden some time later. This might not seem like a big thing, given that the shorter list of beagle-devoured things to write has now flipped from “Stuff It Has Eaten” to “Stuff It Hasn’t Eaten”, but a watershed was crossed last night. That’s because the oven glove in question was left somewhere previously designated as a “Safe Zone”. We have Safe Zones all over the house, where we can leave shoes, books, bag or anything else the beagle might want to eat. Which is basically everything.
The kitchen surface was one of these Safe Zones, but no longer.

All of which brings me to the beagle video in the title. This is a video which I first saw some months ago, but obviously never showed the beagle, because the beagle is cunning and wily and would have learned from it.

I’m not suggesting that this is the methodology employed by the beagle yesterday evening, but given that it doesn’t possess opposable thumbs and isn’t really built for climbing or jumping, I’m not sure how else it could have got up there. The only other option, as far as I can see, is that our family pet possesses telekinetic powers. This might seem somewhat implausible, but it can shift a huge amount of grass and soil from my lawn in an extraordinarily short amount of time and has done this on a number of different occasions.

Short of installing a camera like the guy above did (and which would probably get eaten anyway), I’m not quite sure how we’ll ever know we have a supernatural beagle. But in the meantime, we’re running out of beagle-free areas within the house.

Or maybe the beagle is just gradually limiting the number of human areas in its kennel?