Another Week.... more walking

As another weekend draws to a close and the office beckons once more, a new FitbitWorkweek Hustle challenge is on. This week, Suzanne has joined in the fun!
Sadly, my days mainly consist of sitting at a desk in front of a computer playing with numbers and spreadsheets, not sure how I will be able to ever catch Clare C who seems to never sit still.

About my beagles
I can almost hear my poor beagles groaning about being dragged out from under the duvet for a 5:30 am walk before work, if they could speak they would definitely be protesting! However, a quick clash of the foodbowls seems to get them moving at any time of the day or night.
Walking with Alfie and Freddie is always eventful and usually involves the two of them dragging me around the streets of Kingsteignton whilst they eat or at least attempt to eat every discarded  piece of rubbish whether it is edible or not. Whilst Alfie is quite selective, he will take a wrapper and contents and extract every morsel and then spit out the wrapper, Freddie will just demolish the entire contents and its covering regardless of the construction.Now and again I get lucky and manage to extract some if the contents from his mouth, but mainly , it just gets swallowed whole! Typical beagle.
You'd think they would prefer a good root around in the woods, but even when we go to the country park, they spend all their time trying to eat the duck food or trying to catch ducks.
Living in Devon you are never far from a beach and I have to admit I do like a walk along the sand, it also seems to have less eating hazzards along the way, as the seagulls tend to get the spoils first.
 Anyone with a beagle will be pretty familiar with these comments, they are a breed unlike any other worming their cheeky way into your heart and usually your bed if you let them.

The can be extremely stubborn sometimes they will just stop and plant their paws on the ground if you don't walk where they want to walk. Alfie will sometimes just stop and look at me as if to say, I don't want to go that way and of course I am usually stupid enough to give in.
I was introduced to beagles many years ago via an aunt who had a beagle cross, more beagle than anything else, I just fell in love with him and his naughty ways. When the opportunity arose, adopted my first beagle Alfie, from the lovely Sue Hall. I'm sure he had the most character out of the entire litter, I remember cuddling him for the first time whilst he was trying to eat my hair, even at 6 weeks old he was always trying to eat something.
Freddie came along at 18 months when it was decided that just one beagle was not enough!
As all beagle owners will tell you, beagles are obsessed with food, sometimes displaying guarding behaviours - if they won't give it up, you have to resort to all sorts of tricks to try and remove food from them, even then they will just not give it up! Alfie is no different, not even a year old when sitting in a pub, he got away and ventured into the pub kitchen and came running through the pub with a leg of pork in his mouth, suffice to say the landlord was not seeing the funny side of it. We left the pub quite quickly after that and did eventually retrieve the pork, but strangely the landlord did not want it back.
They are super speedy when they are on a mission, Alfie reminds me of the game hungry hippo's as his lightening quick muzzle will grab whatever gets within a inch of it, much to the horror of many of my friends and family, luckily I have understanding family and friends. Particularly Michelle, whose daughter Shannon got covered in lasagne when Alfie decided it smelled too good and launched himself at her plate which of course went everywhere!
Sometimes I have to laugh as my two work together to get what they want. Big fans of tomatoes, one summer saw them take it in turns to climb on top of one another to steal the ripening tomatoes straight from the vine, taking great care to discard the green ones.
Freddie is pretty lazy and will usually wait for Alfie to do all the hard work before grabbing the prize at the end and devouring it all himself. This has happened with a lump of gammon stolen from a closed fridge, packs of butter swiped from the worktop after some of Alfie's lucrative counter surfing along with a whole host of other tasty morsels never intended for beagle stomachs.
You learn pretty quickly as a beagle owner to not leave anything within reach or not locked away inside a cupboard.

Beagle Welfare
I first became aware of beagle welfare through Sue Hall and absolutely loved the bi-annual magazine which still makes me laugh and cry in equal measures. After reading this for numerous years, I spotted an advertisement for a new treasurer for BW, so, after much umming and ahhing - well about 10 minuntes, I decided to apply and got the job.
Its amazingly busy with so many beagles being given up for adoption as owners either get bored of looking after them or just don't do their research.
Its so sad and exasperating to hear and see some of the posts on social media where people still think they can get a puppy and leave it at home for 8 hours a day and wonder why they return to a destroyed house or why they have such a hyperactive dog on their hands. Its just common sense really, dogs are like children, they need stimulation,time and attention and most of all consistent training and boundaries, the reward for this will be well behaved dogs whole you give unquestioning love and companionship.

Why am I doing this challenge?
Not really giving it much thought before agreeing to this 96 miles trek over the beautiful Scottish countryside, I am hoping to get a little trimmer, but above all, its about raising funds and awareness for the breed. Working with everyone at BW is great. There are some amazingly inspiring people who give so much of their time an energy to the charity, its lovely to be part of such a great team!
I am thinking that an average of 20 miles per day at a speed of 3 miles per hour, that's not going to take long about 7 hours of walking per day with lunch en route, how hard can it be - I might be eating my words when it comes down to it..... Then there are the dreaded midges, maybe those net hat things are a good idea afterall Clare B!lol!
Would love to find a cruelty free version of the Avon skin so soft that everyone keeps recommending.

And so to this week's challenge, everyone is now trying to beat Clare C, my thinking is, don't even try, I'm just going to attempt to do more that I did last week. I don't get too hung up over numbers, I work with them all day at work and most evenings for BW so the last thing I want to do is worry about them whilst walking......