Farewell, Disapproving Beagle

Estimated reading time: 7 minutes

This beagle was a character. He was a big part of our road schooling lives back in the day. And beyond adding beagle-y spice to our adventures, the comfort and joy he brought to our family is immeasurable. He deserves a tribute so here are some random-ish Bingo stories.

Beagle-ing his way into our hearts

We were hesitant to get a dog. Or any pet really. The practicalities and complications aren’t lost on adults as they are kids. But they really wanted a dog so we casually visited adoption events in our area from time to time. We met lots of great dogs looking for forever homes.

We’d done a lot of research on what breeds (or mix thereof) would be the best fit for us. We already had our hands full with homeschooling life, so we were thoughtful about what else we were taking on in terms of caring for a pooch and managing the personality characteristics that come with different breeds.

Then one day—May 22, 2010 to be exact—we casually walked into the local pet store on the way home from a friend’s birthday party and our fate was sealed. There were plenty of cute pups cavorting about in the pen. A few came up to us standing at the edge, excitedly looking for attention.

In the flurry of wagging tails and fur, was a beagle. He propped himself up on his hind legs against the enclosure with one front paw and the other dangling, his white-tipped tail wagging enthusiastically. With one curious tilt of his head, he shone his liquid-brown eyes into mine. “Uh, oh,” I said.

And thus began our beagle adventure.

Gotcha day for Bingo—May 22, 2010.

What to name a rescue beagle

In the scramble to collect the initial supplies to care for our sudden new family member, we began the ever-important discussion—what to name this cute bundle of fur.

We tossed around a multitude of clever contenders. The kids wanted something on the traditional side, though. Something in the Spot-Fido-Rover range. I don’t recall exactly how “Bingo” became a consideration but once it did, it became the clear winner.

And, in truth, it fit well. There was a distinct match between the sound of the name and his perky, bouncy personality. And as happens with our beloved pets, over the years he gained a long list of nicknames that riffed on Bingo. Beegee, Beegee Weegee, Bingers, Beegers, Beegs, The Binginator, Bing-a-ling-a-ding-dong, His Beagleness, and The Disapproving Beagle—his social media persona.

He was a good sport.

Riverbank

My youngest kiddo was also intent on Bingo having a middle name. I had to say I agreed if for no other reason than to be able to say his full name when he was in trouble.

“Riverbank” was the contender—the rationale being that our new pup’s mottled white, brown, and black fur resembled the bank of a river as the dappled sunlight danced on it through the trees. I can still picture that seven-year-old face, passionately describing that scene. To this day, that memory melts my mom heart.

In the end, “Bingo Riverbank” seemed a mouthful so we shortened it to River.

River was definitely an appropriate middle name for Bingo.

Unknowns

When you bring a rescue animal home, you don’t really know what you’re getting. Their history and emotional state can be big question marks. And, let’s face it, a lot of the time, they’ve been abused or neglected.

That didn’t seem to be the case with Bingo. He seemed pretty happy and was well-trained. He even knew a few tricks like “shake” and “roll over.” His initial vet checkup revealed he was in good health and probably about 1–1/2 years old.

All we’d been able to gather from the adoption group who took him in is that his previous family was Japanese. So with the language barrier, the only information they could relay to us was that the family has surrendered him because he’d gotten too big. Keep in mind, he’s a whopping 20 pounds so we were a little baffled about what they expected if 20 pounds was too big.

Regardless of their situation and reasoning, they’d clearly taken good care of him and spent a lot of energy working with him. It was a win for us.

One of the bizarre things we did notice on day one was that he appeared to have never stepped on grass before. We watched in amazement as he tentatively took his first step from the concrete driveway onto the lawn. He pressed one front paw into the grass, then pulled back a little, uncertain.

It didn’t take long for him to get used to the feeling and enjoy frolicking on the lawn. But it was clear this was a new experience for him.

Clearly he got over his trepidation about grass.

Adventure beagle

For all of his hesitation over grass on that first day, he came a long way over the years. Bingo turned into one well-traveled beagle. He joined us for many of our road-schooling adventures, traveling thousands and thousands of miles with us as we learned through exploration. He camped his way all over North America and became our mascot.

My Instagram feed was ripe with beagle adventures alongside the kids. We joked he’d probably rather be at home curled up in his basket but he was a good sport anyway. He’d often give us the “Are you kidding me?” look which earned him the #DisapprovingBeagle hashtag in my social media posts.

And back in the days when I did brand ambassador type things, he was frequently my reluctant model.

My gear model.

Geocaching

Those who are familiar with geocaching will know you try not to draw attention to yourselves while on the hunt for a cache. But when you’ve got multiple members of your caching team searching an area for the cache—two of them young children—you have to find a way to let your team know you found the cache without blatantly shouting “Found it!”

That’s where Bingo came in. We could just call out “Bingo!” and if there where any muggles within earshot, we could just pretend we were talking to the dog. We could also pretend we were lingering about in strange places to give him a bio break. He was a fabulous co-conspirator in our geocaching adventures.

Bingo logged quite a lot of geocaches in his time adventuring with us.

Marking the days

I’m not sure how it began, but making a Bingo calendar for the kids became an annual tradition. The kids treasure their calendars, packed with pictures of their beloved pup. I’ve made them for the last fifteen years. I don’t see that changing. It’s probably more important than ever now, even if we won’t have any new pictures to add to the mix.

I’ve spent countless hours looking at photos of Bingo over the years in the course of making those calendars. Sifting through them now in this context conjures up such a mix of emotions. It’s kind of hard to not just blather on endlessly with a million Bingo stories. Instead, I’ll just close with a batch of random photos and say farewell, Disapproving Beagle.

Thank you for capturing our hearts, sweet boy.