I believe that on the whole, children are actually much easier to cope with than pets.

Recently my colleague Lynsay was heartbroken when her beloved dog died, but after much indecision she finally decided to get another pet from the Rescue and Rehoming Centre.

Seemingly nowadays you can go online and look at the dogs’ profile and picture before you make your selection and meet the dog.

Which sounded to me like a brilliant way of doing things.

“I selected Eddie, a petite two-year-old Jack Russell and agreed to meet him with the rescue people at a park not far from my house,” explained Lynsay.

“Great Idea,” I thought.

“But when I got there, Eddie turned out to be a Staffordshire bull terrier, which was at least twice the size of the ‘Eddie’ I had picked.”

“Oh no,” I stated.

“How on earth did that come about?”

“Apparently the photos on the web site were mixed up.”

Lynsay ended up keeping the new, much larger ‘Eddie’ as she warmed to him right away and couldn’t find it in her heart to send him back to the rescue centre.

“Lynsay, I know you’ve been duped in the past by some misleading online dating pictures,” I laughed.

“But this is a new one on me!”

Another colleague Sheila told me of her recent fiasco with her puppy Jess.

Sheila needed a cage for the back of her car to put Jess in so that she could drive her to different parks for some woodland walks.

“Entering the shop I spotted a cage which was already built up and decided it was the one for me so long as it fitted in the back of my car,” Sheila explained.

According to Sheila she asked the assistant if he could take the built up one out to her car to make sure it fitted.

But he was having none of it and suggested she buy one, take it home, build it up and see if it fitted.

“And what if it didn’t?” I dared to ask.

“He said if it didn’t fit my car, I could always borrow a van and bring it back.”

“Eh?” I was bemused by his ludicrous suggestion.

“That way I wouldn’t have to strip it back down.”

But that’s exactly what Sheila had to do because after building the cage up she discovered it was 1cm too big for her car.

Argh…….what a palaver to take a dog for a walk.

A week later Sheila actually got a cage that fitted and finally headed out with her pup.

“She was so excited she jumped right into the cage.”

But apparently Jess has still never managed her woodland walk because unluckily for Sheila she hit a diversion which took her miles away.

Then another diversion, and another.

The long and the short of it was that Jess sat for an hour and a half in her cage and Sheila was so hacked off she headed back home.

My daughter Jenna, who is a dog groomer phoned me sounding more than a little frazzled.

“I’ve just groomed the worst behaved dog ever mum,” she seemed uptight as she went on to explain.

“It howled from the minute its owner left it and hid underneath the grooming bed ridged with fear and wouldn’t budge.”

Apparently Bruno was a fairly large and heavy dog which made it even more difficult to handle.

“I pulled and hauled at it, and finally managed to get it into the bath after enticing it out with a dog biscuit.”

It all sounded like a lot of effort just to shampoo and cut a dog!

“After clawing at my arms with its long sharp nails, I finally got it on to the grooming bed.”

I was glad it was her and not me as she added.

“Then it broke the skin on my hand when it tried to bite me.”

And as much as she hated doing it, Jenna had no choice but to muzzle Bruno to keep herself safe, and I was feeling rather stressed listening to the rebellious goings on at her dog grooming salon.

“After much wrestling it was finally shampooed and styled ready to be collected when suddenly the nervous beast decided to pee all over the blinkin floor!” Jenna added.

And I reckoned there must be easier ways to make money as she continued.

“I brushed up and mopped the floor and just as I was putting Bruno’s collar back on I checked my mobile phone as it had been beeping, and that’s when I saw a text message from Bruno’s owner which read.”

“Sorry Jenna, but I normally give Bruno two Valium before he goes to the groomers, but this time I forgot. Hope he was OK. Davie.”

I held the phone away from my ear as Jenna ranted in a very loud voice.

“Valium. Bloody Valium. It’s me who should be on …….”