Yesterday, I met Brian on Brighton beach. Brian was a small and pointless dog of the very highest order. An 8 week old Chihuahua whose skull would split easier than a lightly boiled egg. His ickle legs weren’t much sturdier than an anorexic pigeon. In fact, his overall appearance was similar to an anorexic pigeon. If you took Brian for a walk, he’d be suffering from palpitations by the time you reached the front door. He’d struggle to drag a feather back to his master.

Brian oozed charm like a chocolate fountain oozes calories, and proved just as difficult to resist. He trotted up and down the beach, tripping over pebbles, choking on shards of driftwood and using his protruding puppy dog eyes to con a sixteen stone man into giving him a cuddle. He was the reason ‘aaaaaw’ was invented. And I’ve never wanted to stuff something into a carrier bag and run for the hills so much since my unemployment days, when Tampax was a luxury purchase.

This is not the kind of dog you can tramp across the heather with. It would get thorns in it’s paws and mud in it’s fur, and end up sodden, shivering and surprisingly heavy. Olly wants the kind of dog that only stops fetching sticks when it’s heart gives out, and can fit a toddler’s head in it’s placid mouth. A man’s dog, for the man of the house, the kind you accessorise with a hunting knife and a hip flask.

So, a dilemma presents itself. There is no way I am going to persuade him that a small and pointless dog is what has always, always been missing in our lives. Even less chance that he’ll allow me to dress it up and drag it around in a shopping cart. And small dogs have a point to prove, and they yip and yap and snarl and start fights they can’t finish, and are generally a pain in the neck for anybody without misguided maternal urges.

But I need Brian. And I sense that he needs me. And if that means resorting to bribery, blackmail or bawling my eyes out, then so be it.