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?

Southern Cape Wee Stop Quota Photo

Life with Colin has opened our eyes up to some of the sideroads off the R316 and R319.
Previously, these were places we sped past on the way to or from the cottage. Now we have to stop to allow the hound to urinate, and during that necessary process, I’ll take a photo of the surrounding countryside.
We’ve already visited roads to places like Oskop and Houtkloof. Today, we did the Jongensklip junction and while Colin squatted, I pointed (tastefully in the other direction) and shot.

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There’s a Flickr “Dog Wee Stop Landscapes” group in there somewhere, but I’ll save both you and them from post jellyfish-eating vomit stop at Freesia and Main in Struisbaai yesterday afternoon.

Have I Got Hues For You

UPDATE: On seeing this, I realise the photo is a bit fuzzy. But then, so is the dog. Accuracy abounds and needs must.

I had a wonderful Isle of Man related quota photo lined up for today, but the will have to wait, because we’re struggling with internet connectivity today.

The reason for this outage can be seen in the photo below. Attached to the front end of the dog (I’m no expert, but I think it’s the other end from the kinked tail) are the teeth that chewed through the Telkom junction box, effectively cutting us off from the rest of the world.

“Least said, soonest mended,” he seethed.

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The photo above, with all its lovely hues, was taken this morning in Tokai Forest. Tokai Forest was still full of (other people’s) dog mess. Everywhere.

Before we had a dog, I figured that there must be some technical or logistical reason why dog owners didn’t clean up after their pets. Now that I am a dog owner, I realise that it’s just laziness, a lack of responsibility and a complete disregard for other people.
I suppose that it’s good to have that clarified, if nothing else. Tossers.

But while we’re on that (rather distasteful) note, does anyone know how long it takes for a Telkom PZ50 switch to “pass through” a beagle, please?

So much face

When your kids get stung be a bee, it’s wholly unpleasant for all concerned (not least the bee). But when your dog gets stung by a bee, the results can be totes hilar.
This is the face that I came home to this evening:

image(for comparison, here’s what an unstung Colin looks like)

Colin being a puppy and this being her first bee encounter, the vet suggested we bring her in for steroid and anti-histamine injections, so I wasn’t laughing quite so much on the other side of the bill for those, but still – look at it – JUST LOOK AT IT!!!!

Colin is confused by the huge size of her face, but has eaten a big dinner and seems otherwise ready get on with life as normal.

Sherlock is on the case

Since we’re talking about Beagles, I figure that I should throw this into the mix, since I would have probably thought that it was pretty cool whether or not my home was plagued by Colin. It’s KLM’s Sherlock – their new Beagle-enabled service for quickly and easily returning property left on aircraft to its rightful owners before they’ve even left the terminal:

Clever stuff and a nicely made promo video too.

Huffington Post says:

KLM’s new lost and found program is a lesson in perverse incentives.

On one hand, owners who leave property behind risk losing it permanently. Then again, since lost items stand to be returned via Beagle, it may be tempting to start “accidentally” forgetting more things on the plane.

The Dutch airline has started using an adorable, vest-wearing dog to return lost property, sending him down the concourse to literally sniff out rightful owners after they’ve disembarked at Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport.

This isn’t the first time that KLM have used social media for cool stuff. But it does seem to be the first time they’ve integrated a Beagle into the equation.

Obviously, Sherlock is highly trained and highly intelligent. I have to literally show Colin to her food bowl in the evenings. And even then, she doesn’t always seem sure what she should be doing with it.
Suffice to say that if Colin was given an iPhone to sniff and was then sent on her way at Schiphol, that would be the last you would see of either phone or dog.