Poppy's best friend is a six month old ginger tomcat with blue eyes as big as saucers. His name is Pippin and he was the kitten who lived in the plastic bucket. Now there's a line in the 1980s film Ghostbusters when Bill Murray describing the mayhem to the mayor of New York City compares it to ?dogs and cats living together? as though that is hell on earth.



With Poppy and Pippin nothing could be further from the truth. They spend all their days together and all their nights too. The are genuine best buddies. Now remember that Poppy is a very lively and very strong and very fit and very agile young border collie and Pippin is not much more than a kitten.

In boxing parlance he is fighting out of his weight division but that doesn't make any difference to the little cat. Most of the play involves fighting. When Pippin was smaller than he is now it consisted of Poppy putting his head in her mouth as if to bite it off. For anyone seeing this for the first time it was very disconcerting.

Now that Pippin has grown he has learned to rear up on his hind legs and cuff Poppy round the head with his paws like a very miniature dinosaur. And if Poppy gets too rough for him in her play a sharp claw sends her yelping for cover.

There are two points to all of this. The first is that although they are from opposing species they are best pals . They are growing up together and truly love each other ? so much for dogs and cats living together being hell on earth.

The second point is that Pippin thinks Poppy is either his mother or his sister. He copies what she does and it wouldn't surprise me to see him going for a walk with her. Cats are supposed to be aloof and disdainful but someone should tell this to Pippin. When anyone visits Poppy runs immediately to see them and Pippin bounces along behind like a little ginger ball.

There is no doubt that he has an identity crisis. In short he thinks he's a dog. I'm now waiting for him to try to bark. Poppy on the other hand knows that she is a dog. She is under no illusions whatsoever and simply doesn't want to be a cat.

But whatever goes on in their little canine and feline minds they live together pretty much in perfect harmony ? border collie and little farm cat.