CATS....and sofas

Free to a good home. No of course it's not me, everydog - but this dirty scruffy sofa.

Free in fact to any home. Even though I think I look pretty cool on it.

So why have I got a new sofa? Well, dogpals because master and mistress have bought me a new kennel. Well, actually it's called a flat or an apartment or something, but it's not much bigger than a kennel.

They really want some nice ground like Dachsies Rule, but for some strange reason they have bought this kennelflat thing.

Off we went from our camping trip to Gibraltar where, as you all know, I have been before. As usual everyone at the frontier was interested in ME and MY passport not boring old master and mistress. Some of the nice Spanish police officers tapped on the window and smiled at me.

We went to the nice quiet beach for a little walk, and then master and mistress got dressed up. Well, master did, couldn't see much difference in mistress to be honest. But master looked very smart.

And then they went to see a lawyer. They signed some bits of paper, handed over a cleared cheque, and waited for the keys to my kennelflat. But the woman they were buying from didn't hand them over.

"I don't have to move out yet, do I?" she said, smiling nicely at everyone - three lawyers, master and mistress all sitting there with their mouths wide open.

"Well, er, when were you thinking of moving?" said her lawyer when he got his breath back.

"Oh, some date to be arranged in the future," she said airily.

"Well, it is normal practice to hand over the keys now," he said. "How long will it take you to get packed and move?"

So she sighed heavily, and then said grudgingly "Perhaps a few days."

"OK" he said. "We'll all come back in a few days."

At this point mistress fell off her chair. But before she did she managed to say VERY assertively "Oh, no no no. We have driven down here to pick up these keys, and we are not going anywhere else today."

I have to hand it to mistress. I don't usually pay much attention to her, but if she wants something done or tells me to behave, best not to ignore her. Like this morning when I went in to get master up at 5.50am, they decided it was too early. "Come back in 20 minutes Pippa. Not five or ten. Twenty," she said. So I waited.

Anyway, back to the office with the strange woman who thought she would sell her kennelflat and continue to live in it. Master lightened the atmosphere and added that if the woman was still in the kennelflat that night, she would be sleeping with him. So everyone had a laugh, and then her lawyer told her she had the afternoon to get packed and get out, and to bring the keys back in the evening.

So instead of taking me to see my nice new kennelflat, master and mistress came back to tell me all about it. Then he opened a can of beer, she had a glass of wine, and we sat in my Landy for the next five hours until they walked off to get the keys.

But as you can see we eventually got in, and found this grotty sofa and a few other bits of naff furniture which master and mistress now need to get rid of as they have their own.

The really really good news, the best in fact, is that - and this is what I have been dying to tell you all - the place is full of CATS!!! Yes. Yum. There are cats all around. They hide under cars, they sit on window ledges, and one even sits on the steps of the block.

I have already made three special friends. A ginger one, a black and white one, and a black one. When I say friends I mean cats that like to tease me, that I really have to, need to, and absolutely must chase when they run away.

And I have made my action plans:
Plan a) dive out of block, pull master or mistress on their face before they are even down the steps and then try and get under the car after the cat.
Plan b) pull master and mistress towards every car in the street and try and get my nose under each car, even if there isn't actually a cat there.
Plan c) wander down the street nonchalantly waiting for a cat to do a sudden shoot across the road and then try and pull master and mistress into the street after the cat.

Yes, Pippa likes Gib. PippathecathuntingGibdog.
Or PippatheGibcathuntingdog. Who cares?


PS Almost forgot to say - we are all full of fleas now too. Perhaps the funny woman who had the kennelflat had a cat and the scruffy sofa is flea-ridden. A small price for lots of cats to chase in my opinion.