M's been playing with her new iPad

Apparently I am her favorite test subject....

Happy Holidays!!

Hi there Baxter T Beagle here! Just checking in from under the Christmas trees (where I'm not supposed to be) to wish everyone a very happy holiday season! I've been busy keeping a close watch for Santa but now that my calendar has cleared up I hope to do more blogging in the new year!

Happy Thanksgiving ... a little bit early!

Hi Eager Beagle fans!  I'm still here, I know I've been away for a long while but it couldn't be helped.  I had a few little health problems and my pain meds although extremely appreciated leave me in no condition to write a blog, in fact they mostly leave me sleepy...

I asked M not to put in this picture of me sleeping and sucking my paw but she wouldn't listen and I don't know where the delete key is so there you have it.  Anyway I'm well on the road to recovery and should be back to my devilishly beagle-esq self in no time and for that we are all very thankful!!!

Sorry beagle fans...

I know I've been a little slow with the blogging lately but don't worry I'm still here, keeping busy doing lots of important things like....

Having staring contests with C

Recharging the beagle batteries in the sun

Getting muddy in yard

Laughing at the ridiculous boots M wears to keep her jeans clean in the muddy mess

and most importantly napping... it's very important for me to have my nose covered when I'm sleeping...

It's critical to be able to adapt, if your napping buddy decides to sit up his t-shirt makes an excellent nose guard!!

We have a cat issue...

Or rather I have a cat issue, M and C don't seem overly concerned about it, but I take my guard-beagle duties very seriously and I consider this cat on my lawn a serious affront to my tough beagle image.

Here I am on high alert after spotting him walking across our lawn.  This is typically my posture right before I let loose with my beagle bark .... which loosely translates as "go back to your own lawn you silly cat".... generally he listens. 

Although, I make sure to stay on high alert because you never know when he might pop out of the landscaping...

I swear I can smell him through this window!

Don't try this at home!

Daytime napping can be a tricky undertaking.  You have to deal with way more light and noise then you do at night.  It's critical to find a place that will allow you to block those out while remaining comfortable.  Luckily I am a highly skilled, professional napper:

 

Pillows work quite effectively as light and sound barriers.... but it's critically important to leave yourself room to breath....

Notice how I'm treading the fine line of allowing my nose to get to the air, while my eyes remain in the shadow of the pillow, it's a delicate and importance balance.  Hence, why it is extremely important to leave the daytime napping to professionals like me!

I got to go on a VACATION!!!

Sometimes in the summer I go to camp when my parents go out of town, but this year I got to go too!!!  It was all very exciting.  I thought I'd better keep a photo diary, so here is my impression of the family trip to Vermont.

Oh boy, I'm super excited...

Are we there already?  Hmm, I thought Vermont would be further way, it sounds very exotic! I found out later this was just a stop so M & C could "gas up"... I think it has something to do with food, because M got a bagel, the car got a drink too....

I don't want to miss a second of the fun, but the motion of the car makes me sleepy...I try to fight against it but....

Eventually I gave in

Hey!  Where is C going?  Are we there???  (another false alarm it was only a lunch break)

Ahh here we go!

What a view!  And the smells coming from the forest!!!  So exciting!

Oh good, I found a couch and some sun, I wasn't sure there would be either in Vermont!  Plus great news Grandma and Grandpa B were there with Seamus (aka Moose)!!!

Moose and I quickly settled into a routine of waiting to come inside....

And then wanting to go back out!

The humans spent quite a bit of time here, in the water and on that floaty thing (looked dangerous to me)

There was even a potential friend for me and Moose in the pond, a local otter!

However, as Moose and I are not water dogs (we could be, we just prefer not to be), we spent a good deal of time here, on the lovely deck, smelling the delicious smells

Moose is very vigilant when his people are swimming...

Still on watch... I myself am more of a napper, if they want to do a silly thing like swim that's their own problem, and I'm not going to let it interfere with my schedule.

Luckily, there was lots of time for napping!

We also got to take fantastic walks every morning with Grandpa B and M, in the woods!  Lots to smell, one day I met a black lab... turns out my howl really echos over the mountains... sorry to everyone I woke up early!!

There were also lots of side trips, since M was along they mostly had to do with food!  Here I am super excited to be arriving at the home of the world's greatest ice cream Ben & Jerry's!!!!

Here I am finding out they don't allow doggies inside... how disappointing...

Moose took the news stoically, luckily it was a very cool morning and the van has super sun shades and tinted windows so by the time they got back, we were both sound asleep.

M distressed me by eating this one night for dinner...  I know we all eat animals... but this one still had it's face on!!!  Disturbing, I'll have to keep an eye on her!!

And here I am told is the home of the best pancakes in Vermont (possibly anywhere)... again dogs not allowed... what a terrible policy, there was a baby at the table next to M who put more food on the floor than in his mouth, if I had been there I could have cleaned it up more thoroughly than any human in there... and you wouldn't even have to pay me!  People need to think outside of the box a little more!

I had so much fun, I got a little silly... look I'm batdog!

I didn't want to leave... here I am refusing to take one last look out the window

And this is how I spent literally the entire ride home... M kept trying to get me to take a potty break but I wasn't having any of it!

Who needs thumbs??!!

My regular readers will remember that I have often lamented my lack of thumbs... they seem so terribly useful for things like, opening doors, peeling bananas, typing, reading and of course eventual world domination (which is my ultimate goal)

Today, I took a huge step toward fulfilling that goal, I learned how to use a zipper!!!  This was the ultimate result...

M & C were clueless about the fact that I've been working on this for awhile (although M claims that she noticed last night that the pillow was about 1/2 way unzipped... thank goodness she got distracted and never zipped it up, that would have undone a weeks worth of work!)  I delicately unzipped the pillow and then enthusiastically removed the stuffing (which was great fun) until I was caught red pawed!!  Notice how I'm trying to blend the perfect amount of "who me?" innocence and "yes I'm that smart" smug-ness into this picture!

So one small step closer to not needing those stupid thumb things, they aren't so special anyway!!  I do admit though that stuffing although it appeared marshmallow like, was not all that tasty... and it's still stuck in my teeth!

Shhhhhh....

Can you keep a secret?  I LOVE to read.  As I do spend the majority of my days alone I have cultivated quite the taste for literature...both figuratively and literally, I have on occasion been known to express my anger via the eating of a good book or two.  Ironically one of those books was Marley and Me  about a rather mischievous lab fellow who sounds like quite a lot of fun.  I ate the book before I got to the end though ... I think that was probably a good thing, M read it all the way through and she got all red and runny faced before it was over.  Anyway luckily my mom wants to be a librarian so there are lots of books ... yes, most of them are upstairs behind the baby gate.  If I want to read one of those I have to hop the gate scamper up the stairs, leap over the stuff in the spare room climb up to the shelf I want and knock off a book.... it's quite a process without thumbs, so I don't do that often, especially since I have to put the darn thing back before you know who gets home so I don't get caught.  So mostly I stick with whatever M leaves laying around.  So what does the well rounded beagle read??  I'm quite fond of historical fiction, anything featuring dogs (Thunder Dog was amazing), and F. Scott Fitzgerald.  But quite honestly, anything will do and sometimes in the summer there is nothing better then a quick easy read... the Stephanie Plum novels are perfect for that!!  And lucky M and Grandma B read a lot of those!!  Of course, I can't get caught reading so I often have to pretend just to be napping in the vicinity of a book...

It's demeaning but otherwise people would be lining up to see the world famous reading beagle and I can't have that... I really like to keep quite a low profile!

Happy 4th of July

Today as we celebrate our nation's birthday Beagles everywhere recommend finding a comfy spot to cool off and stay out of the heat.  I also strongly recommend finding a snuggle buddy for later tonight when the scary fireworks start... it's best to plan ahead.