Bertie keeps things in perspective

"Oh look, isn't he cute. You don't see many wire-haired fox terriers doing agility".

So said a lady to her friend when she spotted me at the Granite City Dog Agility Show last weekend. It was towards the end of the second day of competition. Gail smiled and replied:

"Hmmm, there might be a good reason for that." Then, under her breath, and less smilingly, she muttered something about "a catalogue of disasters".

You know, I was hurt that Gail chose to regard my six straight eliminations, mostly a result of my wholly understandable reluctance to enter a dark tunnel with a soft flappy piece of material blocking the exit, as disastrous.

Much better to look on the bright side of life, is it not? I decided it was time to enumerate the many positives from the weekend so far:

1. It had been warm and sunny on both days and even better, Gail remembered her hat and her sun block so her pale and freckly skin did not turn lobster coloured, unlike that of one or two of the other humans present.

2. We were fortunate that fellow Deeside Dog Agility Club members Arlene, Kevin and Jo were on hand and happy to push the Mini out of the mud after the shady parking spot Gail so carefully selected turned out to be in the middle of a bog.

3. We were also lucky that Kevin has a sense of humour and did not mind everyone laughing when his face was spattered with mud when Gail finally managed to shift the car.

4. We were delighted to meet fellow blogger 'Vonnie' from Fife and see her talented Shelties fly round the ring.

5. We were very proud of DDAC member Jake, judging his first show, at age eighteen the youngest, and by a mile the smartest of the judges on duty over the weekend.

6. Once past the dreaded 'soft tunnel' I put in an impressively energetic and mostly accurate run on my sixth and final class, at a stage in the game when many other dogs were fading.

Well I could have gone on, but Gail still didn't seem convinced that the weekend had been a great success.

I then remembered that behind the agility field at Hazlehead Park lies a very special garden, and I decided to take Gail the short walk round there for a break.

Look here I am in the Piper Alpha Memorial Rose Garden.

The statue in the middle was built to commemorate the 167 men who died when a North Sea oil platform was engulfed by fire and collapsed, back in 1988.

What a tragic waste of lives. Now that was truly a disaster.

After a few minutes contemplating the roses, whose delicate fragrance was strong enough as to be detectable even by feeble human scent organs, Gail agreed to amend her evaluation of my agility performance from "disastrous" to "a minor hiatus in a soon-to-be glittering agility career".

And she gave me a big hug.