Our mate

Here are some pictures of Bill. He has been helping Dad to build the house and still comes when there are special jobs to do. Now we think this is a bit of a victory, because when we first met Bill - ages ago - he wasn't really taken with us. We could tell this 'cos dogs have a special sense of these things as you know. We stayed our charming selves, though, and eventually won him over. Now, as you can see he is our mate, and even gives us bits of his custard pie when it's "smoko " time. We even heard him say to dad that we were good company and lovely friendly dogs - how cool is that!

Time flies

It's been a month since our last Blog!!! Wow!
The problem is that we have been spending most of our time up country, and there is no blogging machine up there. this is not about to change too much so we'll just have to get down to it when we return to the Burbs.
We do have photos for you - will post these in the next couple of days.

better now

Tilly is feeling much better. We have been out for two long walks, and she was fine. We have been playing in the house, charging around, and stealing stuff as normal. It's good having my sister back.

Poor Tilly

Things have been strange over the last couple of days. Tilly lost a toe nail on Sunday, blood everywhere, and she has been limping ever since. On top of that she has been vomiting lots and very lethargic. I have had real trouble getting her to play. The humans took us to the vet yesterday - I went as moral support - and Tilly had an injection and has some tablets (anti bio somethings). Not much better though so off to the vets again today. She had another injection! The vet said that the humans have to watch her carefully and if she vomits again she has to go back - it's a real shame, no play fighting, no chasing, no fun at all. I just have to snooze all day. On top of all it's raining and I hate rain .......!

Checking things out

We Know, we know. We have been tardy tardy tardy with our updates. The thing is the weather has been mighty hot for this time of year (well into the thirties and not even summer yet!!) It doesn't give us much energy to do stuff. By the time we have had a couple of play fights, chased a few birds, and dug a couple of holes we are wiped out. So we just hang out and watch the world go by. Lazy we know but life just calls for it sometimes. Here are some photos of us hanging out in comfort on the human's chairs.

non stop

Again we have been slow with this week's blog ....... but boy have we been busy again! We have been up to the country retreat masses,(staying over on Monday) - digging, chasing parrots, catching flies,watching for passing monsters (dad says they are just tractors, but we still bark to let them know who's boss).
Yesterday we were so tired that all we could manage was a walk in the park with dad, and lo and behold we are off to the 'ranch' again today. We know we will have a good time, boy, life is so great!

Our watery adventure

What did we tell you? We knew there was adventure ahead when we had to try on the new DFD's (doggie flotation devices) ..... and last week we all went off up the river on the new boat. We were scared at first - well, what were we to make of it all? Not your normal Beagle pastime! However we soon got to like it and had a really good day. We were pleased to get our land legs back when we landed for a run, and at the end of the trip, but we are now accomplished sailor beagles!!! Here are some photos of us checking the route and enjoying the wind in our ears.

delay

It's been a while since we wrote on our blog page. We have been oh-so-busy. Dashing back and forth to the country retreat, chasing birds and butterflies, barking at tractors in the distance, helping dad with his gardening, re-locating his tiling tools - so much to do. Last week we had a visitor to the place, installing air-con. He was a nice man and didn't seem to mind us borrowing his pencils and stuff!
On the days when we have been back at our city pad we have been on masses of walks to the park. Long walks, lots of smells, lots of other dogs to play with. We seem to be in a permanent state of fatigue 'cos we are always on the go - we love it!!!

In trouble?

Today we went for a long walk in a local park. We love this place because there is a lake with birds and long grass, and we run and explore. We normally don't stray too far, cos we like to keep the humans in sight. BUT today Tilly decided to play with another dog and she ran and ran and ran - in the wrong direction. Me and mum and dad lost sight of her altogether, I was worried I can tell you, and in the end mum went back to get her. Dad was calm as he was convinced she would reappear soon, but I was worried. Eventually of course she appeared, and I overheard mum say to dad that a woman reading on a bench had said "she's being naughty isn't she?"
I was afraid that we would be in deep trouble, but all was well - I guess they love us.

New adventures?

Our humans have bought a new machine. They brought it home today behind the car. They call it a boat, we are not sure what it does but along with it they bought us some new clothes. They made such a fuss of trying them on us, and there was lots of 'oos' and ah's' and 'so cute's'. They said they were called DFD's - doggie flotation devices. .... and then we heard them say that we will be able to "go on the boat" with them. We don't know what that means but we hope it will be fun ...... we will report soon!

Life's little luxuries.

We like our little luxuries as you know. The closeness of the living flame, the lie in with mum and dad each morning, and when we lie in the evening on the sofa, well what else but Thai silk cushions? Only the best for us - we're worth it!!

we love to help

Our dad has been building a waterfall and pond for the ranch. He was working on it last week, a little mountain of rocks, with a really comfortable sand inside - not sure what that was to be. We knew he would want our help so we went along and helped out. Very comfortable it was too. He seemed pleased, though he kept on saying "excuse me I need to work here" We love to help.

Further developments

As expected the rules have moved even further - the humans have made a couple of amendments after 'pressure' by us ( sad eyes, licks, whimpers etc).
Rule 4 ... " The Beagles can get on the old furniture only"
Rule 5 ... "Fine, the Beagles are allowed on all the furniture,, but are not allowed to sleep on the bed with the humans."
Rule 6 ... "OK the Beagles are allowed on the bed, but only by invitation."
Rule 7 ... " The Beagles are not allowed under the covers."

We have not been able to break that one ... yet!

Developments

There have been rumblings at our house from our humans. They have been talking about "rules" for us beagles to follow. Well we are not sure exactly what they mean, but it sort of smells trouble. However we are confident that with our wily ways, pathetic eyes, and cute hang dog looks we will be able to manipulate things to our advantage.
They said that they will introduce these rules slowly to see how they work. We will keep you posted. The first rule is "The Beagle is not allowed in the house!" ...... no way are we going to go along with that one...... it has now been amended to "OK the beagle is allowed in the house but only in certain rooms!"
rule 3 ;- "OK the Beagle is allowed in all the rooms but has to stay off the furniture"
We will report on rule 4 tomorrow!!!

dog or leopard?

We have seen pictures of big cats lolling in trees, and the special way they sit, hanging their paws over the edge of the branch. Every body thinks this is cute of course, which is maybe why sis (Tilly) decided to try it out on the back of the sofa!!

Waiting patiently

We have noticed a strange thing about our humans..... they sometimes go out - out of the door and out of the garden and off in the car (we watch this sometimes). They never tell us where they are going, although they do say that they will be back soon. Sometimes they come back with bags of goodies which we try to get into, sometimes not. Sometimes they go together, sometimes not. Sometimes it's during the day sometimes not.It's all a bit of a mystery to us. One good thing is that whenever they leave they give us treats, and whenever they come back they give us treats, that part we like. We don't like being without them, but we feel sure they will always come back. Just to make sure we keep watch. Here are some photies of us keeping watch from the lounge window.

chilly days!

You would not believe that it got cold here in Western Australia - blimey it's not so long ago that we were flopping because of the heat. Well blow me down if it was 0 degrees C last night, and we do like our comforts. Fortunately the humans have some heating - a "log" fire in one room and a gas heater in the other. There is really only one option and that's to get snug in front of the heat and lol - like we lolled in the summer heat! The other thing is that it has rained a bit lately and we don't like going out in the rain to do our business. I know it sounds soft for Beagles but come on, we are delicate! Luckily there is a covered area out the back, sheltered from the wind and rain which we can "do stuff" in. Admittedly the humans are not too impressed with that, but they understand our need to take care of ourselves!!!
Anyway here are some piccies of us 'lolling' in front of the heat.

How to choose?

Sometimes life can be very difficult. I mean ... how can you really choose between which toy to play with, or which piece of furniture to chew (if we can get away with it!!)or which bone to chew on. We have noticed that whichever one we get, the the other always seems be more attractive - bound to taste better. Aha! a solution - go for all of them!!!

Oh so cozy

At the end of the day (we've heard the humans say that)what matters is getting cozy. Here are two pics of us being cozy - together of course - one on 'Grandads chair" and one on our new verandah at the ranch. After a hard days playing its what we love to do.

licky licky

I (TILLY) love to lick. I lick my Dad on his face (his nose is particularly tasty, although he squirms) and I like to lick Tara's mouth if she has eaten something recently. But my favourite thing is licking Tara's ears. Every morning I clean her ears, and sometimes I do it in the afternoon. She lies down and "purrs" so I know she likes it. here are some photos of me licking her ears.

Tara the athlete

My sister Tara is great at jumping up - she seems to have trampoline legs. This is great when there is food around on bench tops. She can even jump up and flick the toilet roll off the holder, which we can then play with!
Today she jumped up at the top in the bathroom and knocked down some fish oil tablets. We like these and we get one each every day in our food. By the time I spotted what was going on she had pretty much devoured both of them, but I had a little feast too because I licked her mouth for ages afterwards. She, being really nice let me do it (I think she likes me licking her because I do it to her ears every morning and she loves it)
There are no photos of her jumping up to get the tablets 'cos the humans don't know, and we don't want to let them in our secret!

more home comforts

....... this is me (Tilly) dozing on 'mums' knee. Lucky me eh??

home comforts

We do like our home comforts. Whenever we can we sneak and get on the bed, on the sofa, on our humans laps. There are places we are not allowed (theoretically) except when the humans are around, so we make the most of it when we do get to go there. They have a couple of new chairs - cool chairs made of leather.... well we have to try them out for size. Here is us being comfy on our favourite of the chairs. The good thing us that because we look so cute - and don't we know it - they smile and say "aaahh" and let us stay for a while.

new carpet

Yesterday at the ranch the male human ( we call him Dad) spent ages putting down masses of green stuff. He got a bit annoyed because he kept putting little pellets down under the stuff - he said it was fertiliser - and we kept trying to eat it (well it tasted good!). We gave up trying to feast on it and went to climb on our sand dune.
Anyway the end result is pretty cool ...... here is a piccy of me (Tilly) enjoying sitting on it.

New at our ranch

We went up to 'The ranch' the other day and halfway through the morning a big monster truck arrived. Despite our barking it came into our area and dropped something - but boy are we glad. Dad has bought us our very own sand dune! Well, you can imagine what fun we had playing on it ...... digging, diving around, and playing 'King of the Castle'. We love it... can't wait to go back there. Here are some pictures of us playing 'King of the Castle' - Tilly won and is sitting smug and triumphant - I am trying to look cool closer to the house. I will get her back though, don't you worry!

The lovely bones

yesterday we had our first bones - big juicy bones from the local butcher. Well what a disaster!
We didn't really know what to do with them at first ... smelling licking and turning. But then I (Tara, the chatty one) figured it out and I got stuck in - delicious and yummy. Tilly (like a good Beagle) went off to bury hers, which she duly did in one of Dad's plantpots! All well and good, but then she decides she will now have mine. She thinks that 'cos I'm the youngest I'm a soft touch - NOT!!
A few times she crept closer, but a growl got rid of her. The humans sent her off to get hers, which she eventually brought into the house covered in mud. Dad washed it and gave it to her but she still wanted mine again!!
Anyway, to cut a long story short she tried just a little too hard to nick mine so I had a go at her and all hell broke loose.We had to be separated by Dad and he sent Tilly out for ages.
The upshot of all this is no more bones for either of us. The humans say we're worse than kids (whatever that means).

Falling trees

In our backyard there is this big lemon tree, full of lemons, very tall, and getting bigger. The other day the male human comes out with a really scary loud thing on the end of a pole and begins to poke around the tree. All of a sudden bits of the tree start dropping off and crashing to the ground. We were scared I can tell you - no place safe near there! When he stopped the ground was littered with big bits of tree. We weren't too happy about this but we put on our bravest faces - as you can see.

About time.

Our humans disappeared last week. They left carrying big bags. We were left with the young humans and we had to look after them (we guessed that's what the plan was) Well, we were confused ... were our humans ever coming back? Where did they go?
To top it all on the first night there was a huge storm - lightning, thunder, golf balls falling rain everywhere, no lights, what a performance. Its a good thing we were there to take care of the young humans!
We had just about given up hope of them ever returning when they arrived back. Well we licked them to death I can tell you. Today we have been guarding the doors in case they try to go again ... just let them try. They took us to the beach this morning and we were so good they were bound to feel guilty at ever having left.
Things are now back to normal but we shall be vigilant!

The Vet.

Yesterday we went to the Vet. The humans don't say 'Vet' they say V-E-T in hushed tones as if to try to fool us in some way - do they think we don't know?
When we get there there is a big sign saying " VET WEST Animal Hospital" .... what, they think we can't read??
There are always other dogs there, and sometimes dreaded cats! Funny thing though it's not like the beach, we are not allowed to play with these dogs, in fact some of them seem to be decidedly unwell - limps, plastic trumpets around their necks - very odd.
What we can't figure out though is why we go there. Sometimes we go just to have a bath - now that is fun - NOT!
Then other times we go into rooms and have to stand on a bench whilst a human in a Blue shirt pokes around..... face, eyes, teeth, and sometimes they stick something up our bottoms!! Yesterday I (Tilly) was on the bench but Tara got away with just standing on the floor - I got the last laugh though because the human in blue gave me a treat!
Then we leave. All very strange.

Togetherness

One thing we do know - despite our odd tiffs, we love to be together, especially when we are sleeping.

She's back.... hooray.

you remember we said that the female human (we like to call her mum) had disappeared, well last night she came back! It was late and dark but we were really glad to see her. She had a couple of big bags, and she said that she was tired after the flight (don't know what that means) .... anyway she was still here this morning .. things are back to normal yippee!!!

Wiped out

The heat is taking it out of us, yesterday we went to the beach which we love, but golly we were wacked out all day yesterday - a day at the ranch and a trip to the beach in successive days in this heat, I don't think so!
This morning we went to the park with our 'dad' ..... enjoyable and fun, and so much cooler.
One thing we are confused by - the female human has disappeared! Two nights now she has not been here. We think she 'phones' but dad doesn't pass us the phone so we don't know really.... probably on holiday, all very well but what about us!!

.... and again

Off up to the ranch today, and another mighty hot one! We had many a wander while the male human watered the trees, and a couple of times he had to come and pretend to be angry with us as we went across the road and onto another ranch. We came back, though, no sense in getting him really angry is there - not if we want treats!! Here are some piccy's of us at the ranch.

Off to the ranch again

Yesterday we went up to the 'ranch' - the house being built by the humans. We love it up there 'cos the land to run around and explore is huge.It was very very hot however, 37C .... we almost flaked out! Mind you when it cooled down we had a ball, and slept like logs on the way back. can't wait to go back again.

speaking of weaknesses

We were having a chat today, and we laughed about our 'weaknesses' ...... I do love to have my chin tickled and Tilly was saying that her favourite is to be scratched just at the top of her tail on her back, makes her knees go weak!! I watched as the male human did it and she is right, she collapses!

We all have our weaknesses

..... and mine (Tara) is being tickled on my tummy. I have this trick of laying all bare and it usually entices one of the humans to come and tickle me - ooohhh so good!
If they don't come I have a back up plan - I just keep laying there and usually Tilly will come and lick and nuzzle me, she's such a great sister!!!

getting braver

There is no doubt that we are both getting braver on the beach. We now love paddling, and would love to go in further but the waves scare us!The humans try to make us feel brave by going in themselves, but not yet for us!

A while

Its a while since we wrote in our blog .... but a lot has been happening. The weather has been silly - 40+C temps and hot nights, meaning that we have been forced to lol around pathetically most of the day - the photo here is of us 'lolling' .... We have been to the beach a lot but it has been very busy - apparently school holidays (whatever that means ) are still on. Our humans are looking forward to next week when schools 'go back' and the beach will be quieter - so are we. We had a bath after one beach visit last week - off to the vets and dragged whimpering into the doggy bathroom (we have discovered that the whimpering doesn't really have any effect but we still try, just to make the humans feel guilty.)
Last night there were lots of people in and out and a mess was left at the end of the evening ( a 'party' was a word we heard) .... we had to stay in the back part of the yard but we got yummy chewy bones, and then at the end we got to sleep in the humans room! Heaven!!!

On the ranch

Today we went up to the humans new property - we call it 'the ranch' - in a place called Gingin. We had a fabulous time, running all around the massive space, digging in the sand, exploring among the green stuff, checking out all the building goodies in the house and the shed, then resting and starting all over again.If you want to see some pictures of the ranch the male human has a website called www.dashk.com and he has written all about it there

Even worse!

Yes, it is still hot - apparently 43 degrees and the humans say that is "damned hot" .... but to make matters worse the power packed up today (apparently the antiquated WA system couldn't cope and it exploded in our area. We were stuck without cooling (which we do like - us softie Beagles) and without light for us or the humans for 14 hours ....... it's back now but what a performance!!

Hot

This week has been really hot, and we don't like it. We have been flopping around the house, it has been hot to walk on the pavement outside, and the pebbles have been hot too. What can be done?? If we stay in and play the humans get irritated (honestly folks we are only pretend fighting). Its even hot when we go out for walks - paddling has started to make sense!!

Beach games

We are getting to really like the beach now, and we have discovered the dunes. The humans sometimes get stressed out because we run up them and disappear behind the shrubs (Beagles are, as you know known to love exploring). But then when we hear the frantic whistling we pop up to say 'hi' .... and then charge down through the soft sand. Its such a cool game with the wind in our ears as we slide and slither back to the main beach, and we get lots of 'good girls'!! This is us popping up and then racing down.