Bert and George and the BBQ

Bert didn’t like barbecues.

He didn’t like mingling. He didn’t like paper plates. He didn’t like the way sausages always looked slightly accusatory. And he especially didn’t like Barbara from Accounts, who once spent forty-five minutes explaining her “journey with chutney.”

But George had been promised sausages.

And George was a dog of great moral standing.

“If I must go,” Bert sighed, clipping on George’s lead, “you’d better be ready to drag me out when the hummus people start circling.”

George nodded solemnly.

They arrived at the company barbecue just after noon, where trestle tables groaned under the weight of undercooked ambition, and Mrs Pumpernickle stood like a blimp in floral linen.

“I’m terribly sorry,” she sniffed, spotting George, “but dogs must be kept out front. Company policy. Hygiene. Allergies. Opinions.”

Bert opened his mouth to argue, but George had already sat down with the resigned dignity of someone wrongly accused of licking the vicar.

“I’ll be right here, George,” said Bert, tying the lead gently to the drainpipe. “Yell if the coleslaw revolts.”

Inside, Bert was immediately pounced on by the Sort of People who like asking, “So what do you actually do?” in the same tone one might use for “What is that smell?”

He spent seventeen minutes nodding while someone explained their hedge trimming strategy, nine minutes trapped between two people comparing air fryer temperatures, and six minutes locked in a one-sided conversation about “quantum mortgages” (whatever those were).

Meanwhile, outside, George’s ears twitched.

He had detected… a disturbance in the sizzle.

Two caterers — wearing suspiciously new aprons and the expressions of men who knew a pork substitute when they saw one — were unloading trays from a van marked “Premium Grills Co.”

Only George could see the label beneath the label: “McHorrid’s Budget Butcher Bites (Now With Less Meat!)”

The horror.

With a snort, a wriggle, and a heroic flex of the hocks, George slipped the lead, leapt the hedge, and charged.

Inside, just as Mrs Pumpernickle was launching into her fifth anecdote about balsamic vinegar pairings, Bert saw a blur of ears, fur, and justice streak past the vol-au-vents.

“What the hell?” someone yelled.

“Is that a dog?!”

“Why’s it got a sausage in its mouth?”

George skidded to a halt at the grill, teeth clamped around a perfect Cumberland. Behind him, the dodgy caterers attempted to flee but were foiled by an upturned trifle and a volley of bread rolls.

The crowd went silent.

George placed the sausage carefully on the table.

Then sat.

And waited.

Mrs Pumpernickle, red as beetroot and trembling with outrage, blustered, “That dog has—has—sabotaged our luncheon!”

But the crowd, noses twitching, had already turned. One brave soul tasted the rescued sausage.

“…This is incredible.”

“Proper meat!”

“Wait, were they trying to feed us offcuts?”

Chaos descended. Accusations flew. The fake caterers were escorted off by two dads and a furious vegan. And Bert, in the middle of the madness, spotted George trotting back with the quiet pride of someone who had personally saved barbecue integrity.

“George,” Bert whispered, scratching his head, “you absolute legend.”

George, ever modest, simply looked up and licked chutney off Bert’s shoe.

They were asked to leave shortly after.

But not before George was given three sausages, a round of applause, and the honorary title of Chief Sniffing Officer.

Bert, meanwhile, got to go home early.

A win for everyone.

Except Mrs Pumpernickle.

But then, she brought quinoa to a barbecue, so really, she had it coming.