I had a sexual experience with Rosemary Daly of Heel Magazine the other week. Mid morning, broad daylight, her front garden, and before we started she donned a set of fetching blue overalls. Kinky or what?

Anyhow, overalls in place, Good Mornings exchanged, it was straight down to said experience, namely the mating of Dizzy the Perve Terve to Rosemary's dog Yamaha . Long-time survivors of this column will be aware that this was not the first time I have officiated at such a ceremony. Indeed the very first Dognostic's Corner was a frank and fearless expose of the mating of Alice the Boxer, it must be at least fifteen years ago. So this was not my first time. It was my second.

It was, however, the first time for both Dizzy and Yamaha, but Yamaha thought he was hell on wheels. Bounding into the garden, he did a quick lap of honour and without further foreplay leapt aboard, whereupon Dizzy, a good Catholic bitch, bit him.

This, as far as Yamaha was concerned, was not in the script. He sprang backwards at amazing speed and jerked around the garden for a while with an expression of mingled lust and surprise while Dizzy gathered her skirts around her and scurried over to me for protection. Little did she know she was running to her betrayer.

Something about the mess now covering portions of the garden suggested to me that the dream was over, at least for the day, but Ms Daly is made of sterner stuff. Directing me to hold Dizzy firmly by the hair thoughtfully provided beneath her ears, she seized the startled Yamaha, lifted him up bodily and, with a movement not unlike that of a rugby player putting the ball into the scrum, applied him vigourously to the other end. Dizzy was not impressed, but after what seemed, to my back, like a few hours, Rosemary announced that we had a tie, much to my surprise and, to judge by her outraged expression, even more to Dizzy's.

We then settled down to one of my least favourite social situations, the exchange of light conversation over the backs of two animals simultaneously copulating and ignoring each other. It is a curious thing that while humans are known to turn away from each other after the act, dogs turn away from each other during it. Not only that, but the bloody thing lasts forever, or in this case twenty-one minutes, during which Ms Daly and I discussed the Law of Contract, puppy farming, house prices and the situation in Rwanda, while Dizzy uttered occasional perplexed groans and Yamaha gazed heroically into the middle distance. Meanwhile, sundry neighbours passed by, eyes averted.

Eventually, to the intense relief of everybody, even, I suspect, Yamaha, it was over.

The pups are due today, Monday, and for the last four nights I haven't slept a wink because Dizzy, who sleeps beside my bed, has a sixth sense which tells her when I'm about to nod off so that at that precise moment she can go "Aaaaaaargh!" and wake me up. Knowing that to wake the Dragon Lady unnecessarily is to court a dreadful death, I then sit bolt upright and monitor Dizzy's breathing until I'm sure the crisis is past, and she is not in labour. Then I can relax.

"Aaaaaargh!"

So by yesterday morning I was not in the best of form. It is our practice on Sundays to go together to nine-o'clock Mass and pray for those judges who have put the Dragon Lady down (ha ha, like hell). Ten to nine yesterday morning Dizzy means business. She starts labour.

And the Dragon Lady skips out to Mass.

Leaving me.

With Dizzy.

In labour.

In these circumstances, I maintain that no court in the country would convict me no matter what I did to my dear wife, but forty minutes later, or forty hours it felt like, she returned, I fled, and five minutes later the first of eight puppies appeared.

I'll let you know.

Obituary :- It is with regret that we report the death of Toots, the Boxer mistress of rectal ventilation.

"There's a new smell in Heaven tonight

And the clouds are all covered in etc. etc".

And to close, for those judging in Germany, the correct action to be taken in the event of riot by the exhibitors is specified in VDH rule 12, para 21. Sounds like fun.