Britain's Got Talent: is my dog as good as Pudsey?

The triumph of Ashleigh and Pudsey in the Britain's Got Talent final has already got pet-owners across the nation trying to train up family pets as dancing partners. I have no particular desire to see this craze catch on, but I do have two dogs that have so far only cost me money. Could they possess hidden talent? As far as I know, my dogs have only one trick between them: staring at my back while wearing expressions of foolish expectancy. If either of them could read a clock they would know it's neither time to eat nor time to go out, but they cannot. Initially I imagined that with two dogs in the house there would be a slightly increased chance that one of them might perform a trick by accident, but in practice they compete for my attention, then fight, then lose interest in me altogether. After a brief audition, I select the smaller of the two dogs, Nellie, as my partner. I won't lie about my method: I use dog biscuits, and plenty of 'em. Without the biscuits there would be no training, only truancy. This is because my first trick, nicked from Pudsey's Mission Impossible routine, is a little bit cruel: the shoulder carry. It's easy enough - once the dog is shoulder-borne, it's too frightened to jump off – but the fragile bond of trust is more or less destroyed. Subsequently Nellie will not walk through my legs, not even for a biscuit, not even for two. We won't be doing the Charleston any time soon at this rate. I do, however, eventually get the dog to stand on its back legs and walk backwards. It can't do the spin, though; it just falls over. I say "Nice try!" but I think: idiot. The rolling over is unsuccessful. The paws-on-feet back step is unsuccesful. The weaving crawl is unsuccessful, and humiliating to rehearse. A dog on two legs is impressive; a human on all fours, merely undignified. We move to the see-saw ramp I've constructed in the garden from an old scaffolding plank. Coaxing the dog to the halfway point is no problem – a succession of biscuit fragments placed at intervals along the see-saw works perfectly. But once we reach the fulcrum and the back end of the plank begins to rise, the dog has a sort of freak out. Instead of running down the ramp ahead, it turns around. When the plank tips back, the dog panics and leaps into my arms. "Wrong," I say. "Very disappointing." We try a few more times, until the panicky leap becomes part of the routine. We split up shortly afterwards, citing creative differences.