Okay, we all know that there are cat people and there are dog people and when it comes to their favourite four legged friend never the twain shall meet. But there are those who love both – the cog or the dat people depending on which kind of furry friend was first in their household.

Much as I love dogs, I have always had cats. Even my very first feline friend gave birth to her kits in my bed when I was only three years old.

I arrived in Tenerife in 2000 from Thailand already kitted out (boom boom) with two furry friends that I brought with me. The venerable Boodle (originally Kitten Caboodle) who lived to a ripe old 22 years and Chokdi, whose name meant Lucky in Thai, but who was one of the unluckiest creatures I have ever come across.

Chokdi settling in

Chokdi and her littermates had been thrown from a three storey window on to the roof of the outside cludgie  of my Bangkok local, ‘Cheap Charlie’s’. Chokdi was perhaps the least appealing because no one had wanted her and while all the others had been spirited away by CC regulars, Chokdi was left in a cardboard box behind the bar. I took the little scrap home.

In the first week it turned out that she had in-turned eyelashes (ouch!) and a fracture in a back leg – not that it seemed to slow her down any. She got stuck behind the oven and stranded mewling at the top of the curtains on a regular basis. At first very scared and nervous, over time she became  a loud and bossy family member with a short, bright tortoiseshell coat and long legs.

Chokdi getting better (believe it or not).

When we went on holiday, the cats went into the care of a local vet. Apart from being mightily pee’d off with us for leaving her there, Boods was fine, Fergus just as fat and contented but poor Chokdi had been struck by a dreadful flesh-eating type disease.  Her beautiful soft fur was peeling off in long, raw tatters, her ears had begun to disintegrate and she was covered in gentian violet. Had we been much longer the vet would have put Chokdi down.

At home with us she recovered slowly although it took a long time  and her ears never looked right again.

Skye and Chokdi just chilling.

The two cats settled into Tenerife very quickly and neither were phased by the addition of a puppy boxer a couple of months later. Everything was great for a year or so until the night Chokdi picked up poison outside. She went into convulsion and died in pain shortly after. My poor soi baby had been through a lot in her short life but she had known love, a full belly and a warm bed which is more than many get in this life so maybe she wasn’t so unlucky after all.

Chokdi died about nine years ago so you might wonder where this trip down memory lane came from.  Well, except for the most recent addition to our family, Mia, who was given to me by a friend, every cat I have ever owned has been from a shelter or was a street stray.  Every one of them has been a wonderful family member and dearly loved friend and none have had any health problems whatsoever except for Chokdi. I just would never consider paying money for a purebred cat when there are all these fantastic waifs and strays out there just wanting someone to take them in.

The good people at K9 asked me to remind TT readers that they have a cattery which is  bursting wth great felines just  waiting for you to take them home. Please don’t miss the next post which will be all about the K9 cats….just remember not to call your new feline friend Lucky!

Nikki Attree is a talented photographer and digital artist who lives and works in Tenerife (when she’s not surfing). She’s also spokesman for Tenerife’s many abandoned and stray dogs via the website Tenerife Dogs which she set up on behalf of the island’s dog and pet charities.

Nikki has donated her latest digital artwork to Live Arico to sell in the Live Arico Shop in Coral Mar Square, Costa Del Silencio. The small reproduction here does not do the picture justice and you have to admit it is not often you get the chance to get your paws on such a striking and original piece of art.

Proceeds of the sale go to feed and shelter some of the island’s throwaway ‘best friends’.

I am delighted that a report by activists SIRIUS has brought the impact of animal husbandry on the island on tourists to the attention of the government. Apparently Tenerife is seen as ‘third-world’ for its treatment of animals. Okay.

I wonder though about the extent of cruelty that was inflicted on the fat, wistful beagle mix that Canarias 24 Hora used to adorn their report. If you wanted to be realistic about it I am sure K9 or Live Arico could supply a heartbreaking number of photographs of abandoned and maltreated animals that would be a better representation of animal cruelty on the island.

Hell. I could provide a better photo myself using a picture given to me by a friend who bought an abused dog off a bar owner.

Thanks to Pamela Heywood (who has a spooky ability to know everything) for the head’s up on this article and to Perikles for reporting it on Tenerife Forum in the first place.

Every dog lover must have his day and if you are within striking distance of Los Gigantes on Sunday then the Live Arico Fun Dog Show will make yours. Expect lots of fun and games and all in a very good cause.

You’d have to be barking not to go really. For more information you can call Eugenio on 649001907 for information or info@livearico.org.

If you have never seen a Presa Canario up close you have to imagine a dog the size of a small Shetland pony. They are large and impressive. As in fact are their poos.

Believe me, I know. I pick up enough of the damn stuff to open a fertilizer factory.

Now, Tito’s poo is one thing (as any parent can tell you, your own baby’s nappy is sweet-smelling compared to the toxic production of any other infant) but I draw the line at scooping up the poop of my neighbour’s presa – even if that dog is Tito’s brother and therefore some sort of distant four-legged relation.

I caught Orco pooing in my garden the other day. He was running about without a lead on, came to our door to have a good old nosey through the metal gate, which had both Tito and Skye going mental. Daft Tito was leaping about happily while Skye wanted to murder the interloper. In the melee, Tito’s ball rolled out the gate and Orco went to make off with it. As I went out to retrieve the ball (damn those dogs have me well trained!), Orco waltzed into the garden patch and left the most humungous jobbie. I was not impressed. Well, I was, I suppose, but there was no way I was cleaning that thing up.

I stamped round to Orco’s Dad’s house which is next-door-but-one and shouted up the stairs about the kaka in mi jardin (that’s not one you’ll find in the Sugar Sachet Spanish by the way) and he nodded and muttered that he’d clean it up.

Well the mountain of poo had gone by the next day and I thought no more about it. When I next saw the neighbour he passed me by quickly without saying hello and I thought that a bit churlish. I mean, your dog poo’d, you cleaned it up, get over it, you know? But anyway, I thought that was the last of it until in the middle of a Spanglish blether with my very-next-door neighbour, she admitted she’d seen the Orco incident and heard me complain to Mr. Next-Door-But-One. He hadn’t picked up the poo by the next day. So she did. Then she threw it on his stairs!

Do you think she attached a note saying from whence this bomb originated? Aaaah. No.

So now I am mortified! Mr. Next-Door-But-One thinks I slung poo on his stairs. I don’t know what to do. Should I pretend it never happen and be forever branded a kaka-slinging crackpot or should I land Mrs Very-Next-Door in the shit?

In every Tom and Jerry cartoon there comes a point when Tom realises he’s about to get a pasting. Often Tom is in full pursuit of Jerry until the little mouse dives behind Butch. Going at full tilt, Tom puts on the brakes in a panic but it is only after he has dug furrows up Butch’s back with his claws that he comes to a screeching halt with an audible, ‘…gulp!’.

This morning I had the dogs out early and we had our very own T & J moment.

On school mornings I need to get the dogs out and back before the kids shake the sleep out of their eyes so dawn had barely cracked and it was still dark. I didn’t even notice that Lili, my black cat, was sneaking after us until we’d gone all the way around the park and detoured to the roadside bin for me to offload the kakabags (shhhh). The dogs went stiff and I turned around. There in front of me, Lili stood back arched in an impressive imitation of a witch’s cat.

I’m the first to admit that I am quite scary at that time in the morning but it wasn’t me she was worried about. A little way in front of her was an enormous ginger tom. His back was arched too and he was practically crackling with spit and venom. Both dogs were on their toes but I got Skye to sit immediately. Tito, to my great surprise, did what he was told and sat too (thank you, Sharon) which was a huge relief because if he’d taken it into his head to give chase I would have not had the proverbial snowball’s chance of stopping him as he didn’t have his Halti on.

So there we were in a Mexican stand-off. The ginger tom had just pounced out of the bushes at my cat and I’ve no doubt he had been blissfully unaware of the rest of us hanging around.

It took a moment for Lili to realise that she had her very own gang for back-up but you could see her make the connection. She slowly relaxed and then strolled languidly up to Skye and wound herself round her. Ginger tom blinked in disbelief but it was when Lili wandered over and rubbed her head on Tito that you could sense his ‘gulp’ moment.

I had the dogs sit quietly until the tom relaxed his aggressive posture and then we turned our backs on him and headed home. As well as the gulp, I’m sure I would have made out a ‘Holy sh*t!’, from him if it were not for Lili sniggering and high fiving her doggy friends all the way home.

No, I’m not talking about the Huntington Beach Bad Boy, although our own Tito could be just as daunting. We recently became the proud owners of a young Presa Canario. He’s a lovely boy but dearie me, he’s growing fast. At just four months old he already has enough power to drag me down the street so with visions of this great brute of a dog, steaming down the road with me trailing behind him I contacted Sharon Haslam, a dog trainer and behaviour consultant.

Happily Sharon’s initial assessment of my baby is that he is unlikely to turn into the Hound of Zoltan, though she had some firm advice about the need to have him neutered in eight months or so which had my husband squirming uncomfortably in his seat.

Sharon also does pet sitting and dog walking and can be reached on 699109837