Welcome to my Moon Dog & Other Animals’ Room.

Come on in, enjoy, explore, and learn.

You will meet the wonderous animals that have inspired my books.

You will read of animals in my life, those who I visit and animals who are sadly no longer with us but made such a difference to the world while they were here.

First, I want to tell you how completely proud I am to be friends with the rescue and rehoming charity All Dogs Matter.

Meet Ira and Abi the Staffie who is All Dogs Matter’s very fine Staffie Ambassador.

All Dogs Matter work in and around London to transform the lives of unwanted dogs and abandoned dogs. They also rehome dogs in need from oversees.

Watch this touching ten years anniversary video.

Ira founded All Dogs Matter alongside actor and patron, Peter Egan and I admire the work they do so much.

A short video of me with Abi

Abi is a well read dog as you can see!

I adore Abi and love to get Staffie kisses and have a snuggle

Photos ©Christopher Ryan

I am in awe of the work All Dogs Matter do and have been in their office when dogs have been brought in.

Meet Violet- who features in their 10th year anniversary video

And Humbug- two of the dogs they have rehomed.

It’s an honour to attend All Dogs Matter events and help judge fun dog shows. The below photograph was taken at Victoria Park Dog Show where I was a judge with radio broadcaster Anna Webb and comedian Simon Happily.

Now it’s time to meet the animals who have inspired my books.

Moon Dog - The Dog

‘Just then the moon shines down on the giant dog, with all her brightness. And by her silver light I place my hand on the dog’s forehead and whisper, I name you Moon Dog?’

Moon Dog is a Newfoundland. They are huge dogs, and so, extraordinarily strong and the most brilliant swimmers.

I had never actually met one before, or even seen one on the streets where I live, yet my vision was so strong that my Moon Dog had to be a Newfoundland.

So, I went on a quest to the Discover Dogs exhibition to find one of these beautiful dogs to inspire me.

There were dogs everywhere I looked. Dogs, dogs, and more dogs.

Each breed has their own stand but the Newfoundlands needed two stands because they are so ginormous!

It was then that I saw him, the amazing Bob! I introduced myself to his lovely owner Dawn and she told me all about Newfoundlands or Newfs as they are often known. Bob’s kennel name is Gunnersnewfs Austrian Love. Bob had a bib on as Newfoundlands dribble quite a lot!

He was and is simply gorgeous! I shared my photos of Bob with my editor Naomi, my designer Michelle and agent Jodie and we all fell in love with Bob who became my muse through the whole writing process. Dawn was so supportive answering my many questions about Newfoundlands.

Moon Dog was drawn by Izzy Burton

Moon Dog - the book

In the pages of Moon Dog are love and so much laughter but my book was written for a serious reason.

Moon Dog was inspired by Lucy’s Law - a law in memory of Lucy an incredible Cavalier King Charles Spaniel.

Lucy’s Law was passed in the Houses of Parliament on April 6th, 2020.

The law states that puppies and kittens must be bought in their place of birth and seen interacting with their mother.

My book is to draw attention to the cruel puppy farms where hundreds of puppies are bred for profit, without any thought for the animal’s welfare. These puppies are taken away from their mother too young, often smuggled hundreds of miles and many have serious health issues - all for man’s greed.

Lucy was rescued from a puppy farm where she had been used as a breeding bitch. She had a lot of health issues and was adopted by Lisa Garner and the two were inseparable. Lisa told me that Lucy was underweight at first and ate every meal like it was her last and had a fear of doorways.

Little Lucy had a very loud snore and a love of cake!

Meet Marc Abraham and his amazing Lucy’s Law Campaigners, the people behind Lucy’s Law. Linda Goodman, Eileen Jones, Lisa Garner, Peter Egan and all the others in the photograph below that Marc calls Lucy’s Legends. They fought for ten years and that must have been a wonderful moment for them standing outside number 10 Downing Street.

I am so proud to wear my Lucy’s Law rosette to my author events and interviews.

Lucy - the tiny little dog who had been through so much yet shone her light on so many. Through Lucy’s Law that light continues to grow brighter.

I support Lucy’s Law with my whole heart because I too was a victim of unscrupulous people who sold me a sick kitten.

Saying I love you and goodbye to Crayon, my little kitten, was one of the hardest things I have ever had to do. It was 4 o clock in the morning and I was at the vet, still in my pyjamas with my coat pulled over the top, completely heartbroken after my emergency taxi ride to see Danny Parry the Vet on night duty at Village Vets. The nurse was waiting in the street for my taxi and ushered me in clutching a box with my tiny kitten curled up on a blanket fighting for life. Crayon lost the battle but had fought so very hard. Danny and his nurses were Oh so kind. But from that moment my life was changed.

You see I had bought little Crayon from a pet store (now thankfully no longer trading.) I had been so worried as the tiny kitten was alone and fretful in a cage and wanted to give a loving home. But you see when I went to tell them that my kitten had died of an E.Coli infection they didn’t care. They just tried to give me two older kittens that they couldn’t sell instead. To them animals were just a money-making commodity, not living breathing souls.

I donated all of Crayon’s food and never had a chance to play with toys, to North London Cats Protection. My mum came round to my flat and we packed all my kitten’s stuff up and took it round there and so began my education on rescue animals. When they looked at Crayons photograph, they said they could tell my kitten was too young to be away from the mother cat. They also told me that they felt I would make a good fosterer for Cats Protection.

This conversation changed my life and put me firmly on the path of rescue animals.

I fostered, then adopted a blind ginger cat with wobbly legs called Griffid. Then later I adopted a retired one-eyed alley cat with no teeth and cauliflower ears from The Celia Hammond Animal Trust for the last two years of his life. Having rescue animals in my life was the most rewarding thing I had ever done.

(You will read more about my rescue cats in the A Room Full Of Chocolate section of my Moon Dog Room.)

But the pain and anger at Crayon’s short life never left me. I knew that I had to write a Children’s Book to educate the next generation but that would also be an exciting adventure story that young people would want to read, and Moon Dog was born.

Will You Catch Me?

‘Noah must have been a very nice man and a naturalist to save all those animals. He made me realize I needed an animal family too. So I started to save animals from people who didn’t want them anymore, starting with Bob Marley my tortoise, who I found wandering all alone on the wasteland, the scrubby grass next to my estate. I am the only naturalist on the Beckham Estate which makes me unique.’

As well as Bob Marley the tortoise, Nell’s animal family includes Asbo and Chaos the guinea pigs, Beyoncé and Destiny the goldfish, Fiz and Tyrone the gerbils and Aunty Lou the hamster, called after her favourite Aunty Lou human who lives next door to Nell on the Beckham Estate along with her best friend Michael.

Nell’s mum is an alcoholic.

‘Mum most kids want adventures. I just want normal.’

For children like Nell, animals provide friendship, love and often the only routine they know in their chaotic home lives. If you have the same issues in your life as Nell, press here to go to my Blue Book Room to learn about Nacoa and how they can help you.

Nell’s animal family are everything to her and she won’t go anywhere without them. Nell’s mum goes to the pub and leaves her alone. Aunty Lou is horrified and wants her to come and stay next door with her and Michael.

Nell refuses to come unless her animal family come too.

Aunty Lou declares

‘Well, if Noah can do it, so can we.’ And Operation Arc is carried out in the middle of the night.

This was inspired by my Dad, Brian Elson, who as a boy saved his jam jars of sticklebacks, newts and tadpoles, two at a time as Hitler’s bombs were falling and my grandma was screaming at him to get in the air raid shelter.

If you have pets or are thinking of getting a pet here is an excellent link to the RSPCA’s advice about looking after pets.

https://www.rspca.org.uk/adviceandwelfare/pets

Bugs

I have always adored animals and although I have always loved Ladybirds I have to confess that before writing this book I didn’t know that much about insects. Part of being a writer is doing the research and writing the character of Nell definitely made me slow down and observe the world around me. I noticed how ants work in a team and how beautiful a spider’s web is glistening with dew in the morning sunlight.

I learned cool facts like if you weighed all the insects in the world, they would weigh twelve times more than all the people in the entire world.

I learned that male spiders like to give presents.

And that Centipedes make excellent mothers.

I visited ZSL to immerse myself in the insect world. I did some research at ZSL click on the link below to learn some more really cool facts.

https://www.zsl.org/bug-facts

Here is another amazing link for you to explore.

https://www.natgeokids.com/uk/discover/animals/insects/15-facts-about-bugs/

During my research I had a wonderful time tracing the steps of Nell’s golden day in London with her mum. I explored St James’s Park and found the tree where Nell and her mum had a picnic.

There are so many beautiful birds in St James’s Park and of course Nell was able to name them all being ‘ the only naturalist on the Beckham Estate.’

The photograph below of a bird with a white patch on its head and stripy feet is a Coot.

Nell also has some tadpoles which turn into frogs as my story develops. I have always found frogs fascinating creatures and as a little girl I remember slowly, slowly wheeling a doll’s pram down the road, with a tank full of tadpoles balanced in it, to my friend’s house so that she could look after them while I was on holiday.

Here is a link with information on how to look after tadpoles.

https://www.wikihow.com/Raise-Tadpoles

Tutty - the Cavalier King Charles Spaniel.

In Will You Catch Me? Mary - an old lady called Mary, who lives on the Beckham Estate, has a little Cavalier called Tutty.

The little dog is named after Nell Gwyn’s little spaniel Tutty.

Nell Gwyn who was one of the first actresses on the English stage.

(Before then all the women and girls’ parts were played by men.) I like to think that the King gave Tutty to Nell Gwyn.

Here is a famous painting by Edward Matthew Ward of Nell Gwyn, Charles the Second and his dogs. The breed is called after King Charles the Second who loved them so. He was never seen without at least three of the little dogs. Samuel Pepys remarked in his famous diary.

‘All I observed was the silliness of the King playing with his dogs all the while and not minding the business.’

The King allowed his dogs to do as they pleased. There is a myth that there is a law that states Cavalier King Charles Spaniels are allowed in all public building including the Houses of Parliament. However, historians have searched and can’t actually find a copy of this law. It is now thought the truth is that nobody dared tell the King that he could not bring his dogs into Parliament with him!

The photographs are of Buffy who is a publishing dog and loves to visit my publishers Hachette on Bring Your Dog To Work Day.

The Real Buster the Staffie

I didn’t plan for Buster the Staffie, who we first meet in How To Fly With Broken Wings? to be in Will You Catch Me? but he just bounced on to the page. Staffies have such a big heart that it made perfect sense that Buster would want to protect Nell.

‘They used to call Staffies the nanny dog,’ says Aunty Lou, ‘and child I can see why. The way that dog loves and protects you.’

Buster provides so much comfort to Nell with her chaotic home life.

There is a saying that ‘Life imitates Art.’ You will have read above how I am a friend of the rescue charity All Dogs Matter. I often look at their rehoming page to read about the dogs that need their forever home.

I was writing Will You Catch Me? and I clicked on the All Dogs Matter site and there staring up at me was a Staffie called Buster, who looked exactly like my Buster in Will You Catch Me?

As I carried on writing my book I occasionally looked at All Dogs Matter rehoming page to see how Buster was doing - then one day I saw that he had gone from the site.

I was really pleased for Buster, happy that he was obviously now living with someone and as I carried on writing he would occasionally flit across my mind and I would wander how he was doing.

Then one day I happened to glance down at my twitter stream and there was an article from a lady called Sangeeta Laudus who fostered dogs for All Dogs Matter. I clicked on the article to read it and it turned out that she had fostered Buster!

Fostering rescue animals is very rewarding. You look after them in your home and work with any issues they may have and get them ready for their forever home.

I fostered my cat Griffid from Cat’s protection before I adopted him. Click here if you would like to read Sangeeta’s lovely article about fostering press here

I immediately messaged Sangeeta and told her about Buster in my books and we had a lovely conversation over Social Media.

It was such a coincidence because she was just off to a meeting that happened to be in Waterstones Piccadilly and immediately bought a copy of How to Fly with Broken Wings and took this photo of Buster with my book. We met for a lovely brunch a week later and the conversation flowed on all things Buster.

Buster the staffie is much loved by my readers and it’s perfect to know how much the real Buster is so loved too.

pictures of Buster ©Sangeeta Laudus

Swimming To The Moon

‘He jumps up on to the horse behind me, puts his arms around my waist. I feel the horses body rippling with strength beneath my shaking legs.’ ‘Grab on to his mane,’ he whispers.’

When I was a little girl, I had asthma attacks, which would often mean taking time off school to recover. I remember curling up under my quilt and reading horse books. I have a vivid memory of reading Anna Sewell’s Black Beauty and the Mary O’Hara’s My Friend Flicka and Thunderhead, Son of Flicka. I always wanted to ride but didn’t have the opportunity, so for me reading horse books was the only outlet for my horse dreams. I never dreamt that one day I would grow up and have an actual book published with a beautiful horse on the cover - it’s like a dream come true for me.

The horse who inspired my designer, Michelle Brackenborough’s stunning Swimming to the Moon cover Is called Winston and I shall tell you about him in a moment.

First just to share with you that it was important for me to make Bee in Swimming to the Moon asthmatic after my own childhood experience. Like Bee, I also loved Judy Garland and Marilyn Monroe Films. People who know me well say that Bee in Swimming to the Moon is the most like me of all my characters. Writing Swimming to the Moon was a magical experience.

Now to tell you about Winston. He is the most gentle giant of a horse and has a big place in my heart. He likes to lie down sometimes for little naps and when I first knew him he used to lick the back of my hand, now he loves to munch the big bag of apples that I always make sure I bring him. Horses have complex relationships between each other. I adore this photograph of Winston with his best friend Dylan chilling out together.

I am so lucky that Alia, Winston’s owner, kindly allows me to come and visit him whenever I can in my busy writing schedule. Spending time with Winston always makes me feel calm. As I brush his coat, I feel all my stresses melting away. Winston has the most magnificent tail of any horse I have ever seen and it takes ages to comb!

He is a beautiful soul and everyone who meets him falls under his spell. He was the perfect inspiration for my book cover for Swimming to the Moon.

Toto the kitten

‘Something soft brushes against my leg. It’s a tiny grey kitten. I bend and hold my finger out. The kitten sniffs it with his little nose. I scoop him up and he snuggles into my cheek. There are cats everywhere- ginger, black, white, tabby, scampering, snoozing, rolling in the dust, draped on branches of trees, drinking from puddles, mewing, mauling, spitting hissing, playing.’

Old Alice in Swimming to the Moon feeds a feral colony of cats, who live in the woods around her wagon. Feral cats have a lot of benefits to the community. They keep down the rat and mice population which helps stop the spread of disease. It’s often an elderly person like Old Alice who looks after these cats. Cat charities call this person The Feeder.

Providing food to the Cat’s gives the elderly person routine and company and a purpose to their day. It’s been proven that interacting with animals is good for mental health.

A cat needs to have interacted with human’s as a kitten to not be fearful. Toto, the little grey kitten is naturally inquisitive and befriends Bee. Colonies of cats can be made up of; feralswho have had no early positive interaction with humans and should be considered wild animals; as well as cats that once lived in a house and have runaway or been abandoned and now living free. My rescue cat Griffid was found under a bush and rescued by Cat’s Protection. Larry my retired alley cat spent his life roaming free but was glad of my home and company in his later years after he was rescued by the Celia Hammond Animal Trust.

You will often see feral Cats around stables and farmyards. My grandad was a farmer and one day a little ginger kitten followed him home, came into the farmhouse and immediately climbed the curtains. In fact, the little ginger kitten climbed everything. My grandad decided the kitten should be called after a famous mountaineer. The Sherpas are a group of people who live in the mountains of Nepal and the Himalayas. The famous mountaineer Tenzing Norgay was of the Sherpa people and was nicknamed Sherpa Tenzing. Sir Edmond Hilary and Sherpa Tenzing were the first men to climb Mount Everest. So my grandad decided that the little kitten should be called Sherpa Tenzing in honour of the great mountaineer.

It seemed fitting that Bee, with her love of Judy Garland, names the little grey kitten Toto, after the little dog in her favourite film of all The Wizard of Oz.

The TNR programme run by Cats Protection help these cats by trapping them, neutering them and returning them. Neutering the cats prevents unwanted kittens (one cat can have as many as 18 kittens a year!) and the spread of FIV- Feline immunodeficiency Virus which my cat Larry had from his days as an alley cat.

Here are two superb short videos from Cats Protection about the TNR programme and how it helps cats and people.

Enjoy them and please share them with anyone who has a colony of cats living near them.

Then there are the bees

Bee is grieving over her Great-Gran Beatirix

‘I miss you a million more times than the number of all the bees in all the hives in the whole wide world.’

Great-Gran Beatrix has written Bee a letter to read after she has gone.

‘As the poet William Blake said, ‘The busy bee has no time for sorrow,’ So don’t cry tears for me. Go on and live your life.’

Great-gran Beatrix writes in her letter

‘Remember-every bee in the hive has a reason and a purpose for living:

The queen to lay eggs.

The drone to serve the queen.

The worker to pollinate flowers and make honey.

Find your purpose in life Bee.’

I loved visiting the hives at Kentish Town City Farm and was lucky enough to watch journalist and photographer Tom Moggach’s

Bee workshop where the children harvested the honey. https://tom-moggach.com/

You will see that the hives are situated in the trees that reminds me very much of Old Alice’s clearing in the woods!

Look deep into the middle of the yellow flower. Can you see the two worker bees?

Click here to find lots of fun stuff about bees.

The bees are of great solace to Bee and were such inspiration to me as I wrote Swimming To The Moon. I hope you enjoy reading about them too.

How to Fly with Broken Wings

Buster the Staffie

‘He’s not into gangs, Buster. He’s into cuddles.’

In North West London where I live, there are lots of Staffordshire Bull Terriers. I pulled out the books that I had read as a child and I looked at the dogs in the stories. They seemed to be either Labradors or Golden Retrievers or Collies or that lovable but scruffy mongrel - all beautiful dogs but I thought where are the Staffies?

I knew that I wanted to put a lovable Staffie in How to Fly With Broken Wings and Buster just bounced on to the page.

I will just say that it is really important to always be safe around dogs especially ones you don’t know. It’s vital to read their body language before approaching them. Please press on this link from the Blue Cross which has a quiz on dog’s body language and gives lots of useful advice. https://www.bluecross.org.uk/pet-advice/be-safe-dogs

I started to do my research into Staffies and it broke my heart!

A large proportion of dogs in rescue centres up and down the country are Staffies or Staffie crosses. We have all seen the bad press this breed has received because of the gangs who traditionally have these muscular little dogs to make themselves look tougher.

Yet Staffies love people. They are loyal with the biggest hearts and it’s their instinct to look after the youngest or most vulnerable in the family, which is why they were known as the nanny dog.

I looked into the history of the breed and what I found out fascinated me. At school a lot of you will have learned about Mary Seacole and Florence Nightingale who nursed the soldiers in the Crimean War. Well a lot of the soldiers bought a Staffie to look after their wives and children while they were away fighting.

I wanted to share with you this lovely RSPCA You tube Video which shows how people have loved this breed for over a hundred years. Staffies have not changed but society’s attitude to them has. I will warn you there are some very sad images right at the end.

I also came across the story of Sergeant Stubby, the most decorated War Dog of World War 1

Press here to learn about this amazing dog.

During my research on Staffies I also came across this touching best Staffordshire Bull Terrier Video ever.

https://youtu.be/yFyD3KiGspU

I contacted Dog’s Trust who kindly allowed me to meet one of their rescue Staffies, Shireen, for the picture in the back of my first edition.

Willem in How To Fly With Broken Wings has Asperger’s Syndrome.

This means that sometimes he finds it difficult to read peoples facial expressions and body language and finds it hard to make friends.

I felt instinctively that Buster the Staffie would want to be friends with Willem.

Asperger’s is a type of Autism and some children with Autism have an assistance dog.

I was lucky enough to be invited to take part in a workshop run by the charity Dogs for Good as part of their PAWS project. I have always known how intelligent dogs are and how sensitive to human emotions they are, but the things I learned about the benefits of having an assistance dog blew my mind. The photographs are of me having a go at a few training exercises with Siren who Dogs for Good use to demonstrate all the clever things that these Autism Assistance dogs can do. You can see from the photograph that she’s trained to hit an exact marker on the floor as a starting point, which will lead to the marker being put on a lap, so that the dog rests his chin on this spot. The eventual outcome of this will be that the dog is trained when the child is having a meltdown to provide gentle pressure, for example lying across the child’s lap. This helps calm the child down.

You can see in one of the photographs that Siren spotted a treat on the floor, but she came back to me straight away.

If you are a parent or guardian reading this and you are thinking of getting an autism assistance dog for your child – this workshop is so supportive and teaches you about the benefits of having an autism assistance dogs. Press on the link below to find out more

https://www.dogsforgood.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/PAWS-Project-Information.pdf#page=1

What these dogs can do is quite simply amazing. As well as helping with meltdowns as mentioned above, these dogs are also trained among other things; to choose a reading book from the book case for the child; bring the school bag when it’s time for homework; and for a child who finds it hard to make friends – having a dog must make the world a better place.

A Room Full of Chocolate

A pig called Claude

‘It was obvious that Claude the pig loved Grandad Bradly. It was obvious the rainbow girl didn’t.’

Winston Churchill famously said that "Dogs look up to man. Cats look down to man. Pigs look us straight in the eye and see an equal."

Writing Claude was a lot of fun. He came to me in a flash! A little pink pot-bellied pig running along, and I just knew he had to be called Claude.

Animals are a very special part of my life. I spent many childhood holidays on my grandad's farm. He had two golden retrievers: Justy, who was really mischievous, and Wendy who was a real lady, and liked to sip a cold cup of tea at three o'clock every afternoon from a bowl!

He also had lots of cats. One was called Wally Walkins, as was her mother, and her grandmother before her. She was so fierce no one could go near her, apart from my grandad whom she loved. Wally Walkins was a champion mouser and would spend days up in the attic.

When my mum grew up on the farm during the war, my grandad had a working collie dog called Laddie.

Laddie was a very clever dog and used to get the bus at a certain time down to the village to collect my grandad from the pub. One day the bus timetable changed, but nobody told Laddie, so he was ages waiting at the bus stop.

My gran had a phone call from the police to say that they had arrested a dog for loitering, who they believed to be hers! My gran then had to go to the police station to pick up poor Laddie who was waiting in a police cell for her.

My grandad used to nickname Laddie the jailbird after that!

Back in London when things were tough for me at school, I found my own pets (you can see here) – a rabbit called Flopsy, and my little Guiney pig Tinker – a great comfort. In A Room Full of Chocolate, Claude is a big comfort to Grace in her darkest hours.

It is a sad fact that animals do not live as long as humans and as children it’s how we learn to understand the cycle of life and death. It’s absolutely devastating when we lose a beloved pet! I really miss my rescue cat’s Larry and Griffid.

Larry was a retired one eyed Alley Cat who I adopted from the Celia Hammond Animal Trustwho spent the last two years of his life with me. You can see from his tattered ears that he got into some scrapes in his youth with other Alley Cat’s. Larry had arthritis and he had special disabled steps so that he could get on to the sofa next to me. Day or night whenever my imagination kicked in and I started to write the next bit of my book, Larry felt it was his duty to march up the steps and onto my lap and stand in front of the screen of my laptop, supervising me.

I still miss him, but I am so glad that I was blessed to have him in my life.

I was so fortunate to have Duncan D’Arcy-Howard from the Royal Veterinary Collage’s Beaumont Sainsbury Animal Hospital as Larry’s Vet.

Larry had a whole list of ailments, as long as your arm, so we were frequent visitors. Also attending their excellent Geriatric Cat Clinic. Click here to read an article from Duncan about Larry on their Facebook page.

Duncan gave me some wonderful advice in dealing with grief.

He told me that if you suddenly get a lurch in your tummy when you see the empty chair that Larry sat in. Turn it into a happy memory and say to yourself isn’t that lovely that I have that memory of Larry sitting in that chair.

This advice helped me so much and I have passed it on to others who said it helped, so now I am passing it on to you if you are grieving over the loss of a pet.

Griffid, my ginger cat who I fostered then adopted from Cats Protection was blind and suffered from CH which meant that he has wobbly legs. I loved him so very much and he was with me the entire time I was writing A Room Full of Chocolate. I show this picture of my Cats Checking My Spelling – to show children that I am dyslexic. It’s my little joke, but in all honesty, cats are attracted to laptops because they give out a warmth and a humming noise that our ears don’t detect and which they find very comforting.

Because of this photograph so many children have found the courage to talk to me about their dyslexia, which is a lovely legacy for Larry and Griffid to leave.

Fun Fact 1
Pigs are the fourth cleverest species on the planet:

1. Humans
2. Primates
3. Dolphins and whales
4. Pigs!

Fun Fact 2
The mother pig sings to her piglets when she is nursing.

Fun Fact 3

In Denmark there are twice as many pigs as people.

Fun Fact 4
Pigs talk to each other using different grunts and squeals.

Fun Fact 5
Pigs have 44 teeth.

Fun Fact 6
Pigs drink up to 14 gallons of water a day.

Fun Fact 7
Pigs roll around in the mud to keep cool.

Fun Fact 8
Pigs have 15,000 taste buds! Humans have 9,000.

Fun Fact 9
An adult pig can run up to 11 miles per hour.

Fun Fact 10
Pigs have four toes on each foot but they walk on only two. That's why they look like they are walking on tiptoe.

Check out these stories of pigs saving their owners lives

PETA - The hidden lives of pigs

Maybe you are lucky enough to have your own pets.

If you don't have pets but love animals – there are still ways to get involved.

If you live in the town, and reading A Room Full of Chocolatehas wet your appetite to visit a farm, there are City Farms up and down the country that welcome visits from young people. Many of them have opportunities for you to help look after the animals.

Images taken at Kentish Town City Farm

Kentish Town City Farm is particularly close to my own heart. I took a year out from writing and acting to do an NVQ in horse care there. It was one of the best things I ever did. Here is the link:

Kentish Town City Farm

Click here for more links to City Farms.

If your family is thinking about getting a pet, please consider getting one from a rescue centre.

Click here for more info and links to some rescue centres