I'VE heard some bizarre complaints in my time but the irate phone call from a woman demanding to know why we'd taken an "unflattering" picture of her dog at Sedgefield Show may well take the biscuit.

This was one very angry woman. The photograph in our Sedgefield Show gallery made her dog look "absolutely horrible".

"What if someone from Crufts sees it?" she wailed, letting us know that she already consulted her solicitor so we'd better take it off our website and not publish it in the paper.

Let's calm down and put this into context. It wasn't as if our pedigree photographer, Chris Booth, had gone undercover in dark glasses and a trilby hat at Sedgefield Show, intruding on privacy, and taking secret pictures from underneath his raincoat with his long lens. He'd just wandered round, as our photographers always do at country shows, snapping away at anything that caught his eye.

No, this wasn't the paparazzi at work – or even the pup-arazi for that matter. Just a bloke doing his best to capture the spectacle of a nice event.

News editor Andrew Douglas did his best to placate the dog-owner, advising her that there was nothing in the law or the journalists' code of conduct which prevented us from taking pictures of dogs taking part in a public show. He even agreed to remove the picture from our website as a gesture of goodwill, even though he didn't have to, but the woman's demands continued.

"Get the photographer to phone me back with an explanation of how he came to take such an awful picture of my dog," she yelled. "Now!"

We have spared the photographer that particular ordeal but the complaint raises all kinds of concerns. What if we take unflattering pictures of cows or bullocks at the Great Yorkshire Show? What if we don't get the best side of a Swaledale sheep or make Saddleback pig look like he's got two chins?

AS "the new boy" back in 1984, I recall the reporters used to draw straws to decide who had to cover Darlington Dog Show because it was the hardest job of the year, due to the mountain of results.

Suspiciously, I always seemed to draw the short straw and one year has particularly bad memories.

There was a freelance journalist called John Merry, who liked a bit of mischief, and he came up to me with a gift while I was compiling the results. It was a giant Pedigree Chum umbrella, which he assured me was complimentary.

It was drizzling outside so there I was, walking round South Park with my new umbrella, when I was "arrested" by a posse of show officials.

I was marched to the chairman's caravan where the formidable Scylla Riley-Lord, OBE, was waiting to sit in judgement.

"It has come to my attention that you have stolen a Pedigree Chum umbrella – what have you got to say for yourself," she began.

I grovelled and Mr Merry wore a smirk for the rest of the day.

NEWS of the bow wow row at Sedgefield Show inspired Northern Echo reporter David Roberts to get in touch with a memory about veteran journalist Jim McTaggart during his epic career at the Teesdale Mercury.

The only time Jim was ever physically assaulted through the decades was when he outraged an old woman by mistakenly putting her jam in third place instead of second at a country show. She jabbed him with her umbrella.

As far as I know, it wasn't a Pedigree Chum umbrella.

FINALLY, thank you and good luck to the Friends of the Booth Memorial Institute in Catterick Village.

The Friends had me as guest speaker last week at an event to raise money for the restoration of the community centre which dates back to 1898.

It's a tall order – the target is £150,000 but with grants of £20,000 and £4,000 from Richmondshire District Council and the parish council, a decent start has been made.

The way communities rally round is a joy to see and it was a pleasure to play a small part.