Poppy the Podenco leads you through the emotional roller coaster that has been her eventful early life, taking you from her time as a discontented hunter through to being a pampered pet.

Evolving from a determined and courageous feral into a gentle matriarch she exposes the canine world as you have never seen it before.

You will never see your pet in the same light again.

Taster follows.

Let me introduce myself, my name is Poppy and I am a Podenco. How I acquired my name is of no consequence at this stage, all will be revealed on that subject in due course. What we need to concentrate on at this point is the Podenco bit.

So what is a Podenco I hear you ask? A Podenco is a Spanish hunting dog used mainly in the hunting of rabbits and small mammals. I, however, am no ordinary Podenco. I am a Podenco Andaluz, which means my strain is mainly to be found in the Andalucia region of Spain.

As an Andaluz I am one of the most intelligent and swiftest dogs around, and may I say, one of the most beautiful you will ever encounter. I have ears that stand proud like those of the Pharaoh hound, from whom I am directly descended. I have long slender legs that any model would be proud of, a barrel chest and a slim waist. I have a beautiful temperament and am faithful to a fault. In my opinion I am the queen of dogs.

I have had a very unusual life up until now and I thought you might like to read about it, so I persuaded David, my pet human, to put it in print for me. I very much hope that you get as much enjoyment from reading my unique story as I have had dictating it.

Before you start reading, however, I just want to let you into an extremely well kept secret. We animals can talk to each other without humans detecting a sound. We can have complex conversations and are capable of intricate thought without you being aware at all. We have emotions too, we love, we hate, we smile, we frown, we feel fear, we feel happiness, we laugh and we cry. We don’t have tear ducts so we cannot shed tears, but believe me we cry inside.

So you see we are not dumb animals, in fact in my experience no animal is dumb. Apart from the odd human that is.