Donald MacInnes: Confessions of a dog-loving emotional meringue...

There is nothing wrong with Glaswegian men having a good cry

A US Marine is reunited with his beloved dog

If one is going to confess something in a newspaper, there are two golden rules. One, it should be a belter of a secret (no point spilling the beans if the beans have no sauce on them) and two, you should avoid doing the spilling in a weekly local rag which nobody ever reads.

Thankfully, I have both bases covered, as I have a huge jar of Heinz at the ready and unfettered access to Britain's most innovative and talked-about daily newspaper (that would be this one).

Anyway, to the spillage. Yesterday, at my desk, I wept like a wee girl. There. It's done.

*Breathes out shakily* But before the Scottish Man Police kick down the doors and cart me off to the Highlands for a bout of re-education, I should provide you with an explanation for my crying. (In the interests of full disclosure, you should also know that said re-education involves being struck about the head with a hardback copy of Trainspotting while a large ginger man screams repeatedly in your face: "You've been hanging out with they Sassenachs for too long, ya big jessie!").

So here's the context for the weeping. A few weeks ago in this very corner of your i, I attempted to twang your heartstrings by telling the tale of my scattered family unit.

This essentially consists of myself and my sister's small family, which resides just south of Miami. The gist of the emotional outpouring was that I miss them a lot and wish I could see them more often.

That being the case, yesterday I should probably have avoided watching a collection of videos on YouTube which show soldiers returning from Afghanistan and being reunited with their families.

And their dogs. Now, me being a sucker of quite fantastic proportions for the ways of the pooch (ask my fiancée), I only had to watch about 30 seconds of footage of some US Marine opening his front door and then being flattened by an ecstatic pet dog, before I was welling up like Amanda Holden in the Italia Conti stage school orphans wing.

But there is nothing wrong with Glaswegian men having a good cry.

At this moment, there is much weeping over the fate of the financially rickety Glasgow Rangers. At least the manager of the team isn't a sad-eyed Labrador, or half the city would be getting carted off to the Highlands…

Twitter.com/DonaldAMacInnes