While it’s the same old, same old every house we visited this year, ours isn’t. We’ve got a star attraction to show off and he has, so far, got everyone we know going ga-ga…

… yep, that would be Tyson, our beauty king of a baby beagle. Isn’t he cute? He smiles too and yelps when he hears his name. Tyson’s been with us for only about 5 months now, so he wasn’t around last Chinese New Year. This year, our visitors were surprised to see happy little Tyson at their feet.

Hip2bDad’s best buddy dropped by with his family. Their 2 teen boys are around the same age as our 3, and as young families, we’ve spent many fun times together checking out new playgrounds, comparing toys, wondering which baby jogger city mini to buy and trading child-proofing stories.

We could easily tell that Hip2bDad’s buddy was quite taken with Tyson and was indicating to his boys that they too should probably get a pet when they return home. The only problem is they live in a condominium where space may be a constraint. We don’t think that’s going to stop him though .

Anyhow, back to Tyson. He’s getting all the attention from our festive visitors as well as from Raine and Skye. Since they have a week off from school, they have all the time in the world to pamper, sneak him forbidden snacks, spray him with water to cool him off in this heat, take him for walks and of course, Tyson is only too happy to pose for photos. We love you, Ty. You’re the cutest!

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Tyson spends most of his day sleeping after he tires of playing with his toys and chewing on his beefy sticks. If the weather is good, the girls will take him for a walk in the park, something he really looks forward to. It makes me smile to see him stand on two legs and wag his tail till it’s about to drop off .

Tyson’s grown up such a lot yet he’s still such a little baby. There are so many smells and sights that are still so new and fascinating to him that he stops to smell everything, yes, even the grass ! Beagles and their noses!!

We place him on one of these modern benches (that’s what I call them) and he turns round and round trying to figure a way down. The reason why these pictures are shaky is he can’t stop moving long enough for me to get a decent shot with my phone camera.

Once we get to the play area, he’s so excited by the colors there’s no stopping him. And ever since we got him started going up the steps to the top of the slide, that’s where he heads to first thing. Go, Ty! and down he slides, ears flying!

Tyson, our regal beagle, is growing fast and growing fatter, probably due to lack of exercise . If we let him out in the front yard, he goes under my car and starts poking his nose into everything. By the time our four-legged mechanic reemerges, his face is all greasy and black!

So the girls will take him for a run in the park instead if the weather is good. He can somehow sense it and starts wagging his tail like crazy. He can’t wait to go out and smell the roses, so to speak. Actually he doesn’t just smell them, he chomps on Hip2bDad’s precious roses too sometimes !

Beagle that he is, his hunting nose is probably his biggest fault. Goodness knows we should be taking out a doggie life insurance policy on him the way he runs wildly on the street stopping to sniff at everything and anything, and not watching where he’s going.

The other day, we were early at the park and there were no kids in the play area yet. So we let our little nosy parker have a bit of fun on the slide. At first, he was quite apprehensive and refused to get on the slide. But once he got the hang of it, he was sliding down and then clammering back up to start over. Just look at him go!

Now that we have Tyson and the girls are the ones taking care of him, they seem to be very interested in doing research about pets and in particular, beagles. They’re diligently browsing through every free web directory to gather pet-related information and pictures.

We’ve also been loitering around pet shops ooh-ing and aah-ing at the pets on sale. Raine snapped a picture of this fat pug while the pet shop guy was busy sweeping the floor.

At the rate the girls are going on about pets, I wonder if either of them might end up becoming a vet. Well, right now, they say they hate biology at school but who knows?

Tyson is quite the busy little beagle these days and on weekends, you pretty much won’t find him home much.

The first time he traveled in a car, he vomited, the poor thing! But here he is, happily perched on Skye’s lap in the front seat of the car, all set for his day out!

In many ways, he’s such a baby. He can hardly keep his eyes open in the car and nods off for most of the journey. I wonder what an Oakland motorcycle accident lawyer would say if we strap Tyson on a motorcycle and scoot around town with him .

Tyson has a face that tickles me whenever I look at him. He’s so cute and funny at the same time. Guess he inherited his good looks from his daddy who is an award-winning beagle from Australia. His parents met at a dog contest and apparently it was love at first sight !

To someone like me who’s been around pets a grand total of 15 minutes in my entire life, Tyson is the smartest dog I know! He barks when Hip2bDad leaves and comes home from work. You can tell he’s really really happy to see the guy who actually makes it a point to call home from work to ask if we’ve fed him and if he’s done his poop ??!! Same guy who frequently forgets to return our calls because he’s too busy at work!

Oh and Tyson is growing fatter too from being around Hip2bDad who lets him sleep on his chest and run around the house, takes him out on private excursions (the rest of us are not invited!) and feeds him all the goodies from our fridge!! Trust me, Hip2bDad will soon be asking the girls to research the best diet pills for dogs!! Not to mention that Raine and Skye have the tough job of training retraining Tyson every afternoon after Hip2bDad is done spoiling him rotten the night before.

Yesterday Skye let him out of his enclosure for some much-needed exercise and he ran right out onto the street when I unwittingly opened our e-gate from around the corner after picking Raine from class. Beagles are hunting dogs so they go where their noses take them. We almost had a heart attack when we saw a car coming and Tyson was still bouncing merrily about on the street!! Bad doggie, Tyson!

Life sure is different with Tyson around. For one thing, he’s the first person (??) Raine and Skye rush to see every morning and afternoon when they get home from school. Now it’s more often “hey, Tyson!” than “hi, Mom” *sobs*.

Tyson got his first jab at the vet’s last Monday. He was really brave and didn’t make a sound, even when the vet cut his nails afterwards. For that, he got a brand new leash and bone which he loves chewing.

Hip2bDad drove them all to his friend’s house to let Tyson meet Suki, our friend’s 2-year-old beagle. Suki’s a really sweet, friendly soul and she even let little Tyson bully her. Here they are, having a swell afternoon together.

Karen, my blogger pal, loves the name Tyson and asked how we came up with it. At first, the girls and I were tossing around names like Obi, Bosco, Max and Jelly but none of them sounded right somehow. They either made our playful baby beagle sound like a boring piece of blub or a big bad bulldog who attacks plastic knobs.

As you know, the girls and I are big fans of the All-American Rejects. We went to their concert recently and had a really great time. So you can imagine it wasn’t long before we were on to the names of the band members. Woo-hoo, so Tyson it is!!

Tyson came off sounding so right after we said it a few times it just stuck. Only problem is Hip2bDad doesn’t know who Tyson Ritter is, so he thinks we named him after Mike Tyson. Well, we might’ve… if Tyson were a boxer instead of a beagle !!