Fur goodness sake

SUCH a moving story in The Herald this week abut the dogs that are trained to help people with dementia. We have always liked dog stories and gags in The Diary including the Erskine reader who said: "Friend of mine asked for some advice about how to start a dog collection. I said I'd give him a few pointers."

Hot stuff

PAISLEY meat-market worker John Sword recalled a colleague who told everyone of the drama of his chip pan going on fire the previous night and the fire brigade being called out to save their house. He had reached the point in his tale where he said that the family dog had gone for the fireman when an astonished listener, presumably brought up on too many Lassie films, asked: "Your dog ran all the way to the fire station?"

"Naw," explained the chap. "He went for the first fireman through the door and sank his teeth into him."

A bit ruff

FORMER Celtic and St Mirren star Frank McAvennie, at the launch of old St Mirren mate Billy Abercromby's autobiography, told of the time Aber turned up at a club night out in Glasgow wearing a sheepskin jacket and slippers. Said Frank: "When we asked Billy why he was wearing slippers, he told us he had been walking his dog and had suddenly remembered about the night out. He then legged it straight from his dogwalking to the nightclub, and when we asked where the dog was, Billy said he just put it on the bus and asked the driver to let it off at the next stop."

Flea in ear

PUB yarns about dogs included the toper who declared: "The council wants to ban pitbull terriers from the streets, but they're having problems identifying which dogs are pitbulls. But I don't see what the problem is. If they've got short legs, square shoulders and an aggressive temperament – then the dog with them is probably a pitbull."

And in another pub a drinker explained: "Dogs are tough. When I went home last night I interrogated our dog for over an hour, but he still wouldn't tell me who's a good boy."

Boning up

ACTOR Bruce Morton, once performing in Glasgow's Barlinnie Jail, said afterwards: "Barlinnie is a mental, terrifying place, with incredible humour." One of the prison officers told Bruce the story, which I'm sure Tom Shields once reiterated in The Diary, of the offender incarcerated for unlawful relations with a dog. One night an officer pushed a large bone into his cell. "What's that for?" asked the prisoner. "If it's good enough for your girlfriend," the officer replied, "Then it's good enough for you."

Busted

A SOLDIER back from Afghanistan was proud of the fact that he had earned his corporal stripes and suggested that the picture of him as a private patting the now-deceased family dog on top of his parents' television should be updated. His confidence was shattered somewhat when his mum replied: "Well, you see, son, we really keep the picture there as a memento of Buster."

Doggone it

LISBON Lion Bobby Lennox was doing a book signing with his autobiography in a Dundee bookstore when a Celtic fan came in with two German Shepherd Dogs and announced he had named them Bobby and Lennox in his honour. Bobby was well chuffed, until the publishers' representative with him said: "I was doing book signings with Rangers' John Greig last year and we met lots of guys who had been named 'Greig' after their father's hero – you only got dugs!"

Bottoms up

OK, we have to repeat the classic well-known yarn of the greyhound owner outside Shawfield trying to get on a tramcar with two dogs but being told by the clippie that there was already a dog on board and only two were allowed in total. After a long and heated argument in which the conductress would not bend the rules, he eventually stormed off in anger, shouting: "You can stick your caur up your backside." She merely shouted back: "Aye, if you'd done that with wan o yer dugs, ye would've got oan."

Paws for thought

WELL, if these stories were too sweet we should end with the more stringent remark from a Motherwell reader who once told us: "We were so poor when I was young that we had to eat scraps for our tea. I still miss that dog."