LAPSANG (the cat)

I only agreed to appear in the novel because I was told by the author that there wouldn’t be a lot of work involved. I was also told that the house depicted in the novel would have the radiators switched on at all times even though it is set in late Spring and early summer.

The author thought I was one of the better characters but I am not featured that often because I was out a lot of the time. My first appearance was my favourite. It’s when I arrive in the middle of the night after a two day absence and warn Prince not to get too close to the Family. I really hammed myself up to try and make the reader smile, so that if I ever get to visit the reader’s house there will be a nice bowl of warm milk waiting for me.

Working with Prince was fun, and the humans weren’t too bad really. I don’t think I’d like to do a sequel though. There’s only so much you can do with the sceptical posh cat routine.

Then again, every cat has her price.

PRINCE (Labrador, narrator and hero)

What can I say? It was the role of a lifetime, it really was. Hopefully I added the necessary sense of gravitas to the character, but that is left for the reader to judge.

It was exhausting, because I was required on every single page. Some of the scenes with the Family were particularly draining, especially towards the closing chapters.

But overall I am pleased with my performance, and the novel as a whole, because it highlights the dilemma Labradors now face and asks the question many want to shy away from. How far should we go to keep the Family safe?

An instructive text for Labradors everywhere.

FALSTAFF (half-Springer spaniel, pleasure-sniffer)

Wah-hey? I’m in a novel!

Like, who cares? Novels, along with all the other things in human life, are completely pointless.

Why have your nose in a book when you can have it in a smell-heap, getting yourself high on squirrel-droppings. Speaking of squirrels I’d better go. Just seen one climbing that tree over there. Gonna catch that little bugger.

Wah-hey!

GRANDMA MARGARET (human, grandmother, provider of Controversial Opinions)

I like proper books. Catherine Cookson, that sort of thing. Not like this rubbish.

Honestly, I tell you. Swearing, nudity, all sorts of hanky-panky. The F word, the B word, the S word, the P word and the C word. Disgraceful!

When the author said it had talking animals I thought it would be like Dr Doolittle. Bill, my husband, he loved that film. Not that he was soft, mind, he wasn’t. But he liked a good musical. Not like all this modern rubbish you get. It’s just noise.