Share your funny animal stories to see your pet star in a Holly Webb story!

[EmilyMumsnet]

Does your pet have star quality? This is could be their time to shine!

The Secret Kitten, the 30th story in Holly Webb's hugely successful Animal Stories series, is out in April. To celebrate, Stripes Publishing are giving one lucky Mumsnetter the chance for their pet to become a literary star.

Tell us about your cute, funny or straight-up strange pets, and author Holly Webb will pick her personal favourite to star in a brand-new short story to be published later this year in On a Snowy Night, the Stripes animal anthology.

As well as seeing their pet become a literary hero, the winner will also receive a signed copy of the book (which features in our list of top children's books for Spring 2015) and a £25 book token.

This competition is now closed. The winner will be announced shortly

How about two aggressive male rabbits that attempt to fight to the death, even after castration? Fluffy enough?

We've just lost my gorgeous dog of over 16 years. He was almost 19 years old. He was the bestest most intelligent and intuitive dog that I've ever known. He saved my son's life when he was little, he was an incredibly supportive and gentle companion for my son who has special needs and he used to aid him as a young baby. My children all totally adored him! I am totally LOST without him. You can read more about Tetley here www.sjonlegs.com . I couldn't think of anything nicer for my children and myself than to have a story made about Tetley. #fingerscrossed

I really wanted a kitten. So one day, when I was four years old, I convinced my Mother to let me have one. We drove to a little barn where there were some kittens advertised for adoption. When we got there, I was overwhelmed.There were so many kitties to choose from. Eventually, my Mum gave me a helping hand in choosing. "I really like ginger cats," she said. Then, as if realizing this was her cue, a boisterous little cat strolled up and announced herself. "Miaow." Whenever people say "I chose my cat" I can never identity. My cat chose me! I knew that once this cat had decided who her owner would be I would have to take her home. One little detail made this cat exceptional, besides the fact she could talk to humans, she had a diamond on her forehead. She was a grey and white cat(so technically not ginger) but that ginger diamond in the dead center of her head made me convinced this cat was special. 'She is queen of the cats,' my four year old self declared. Sure enough she's still acting like it after all these years. I am 23 now and that cat knows she is royalty. I named her Perdy, because it sounds like pretty but also because at four I thought it sounded exotic and luxurious like Persia and that made her the Queen of Sheba. Her full title today is Princess(more pretty than her official title of Queen) Perdita Petunia Perfect. I call her 'P' for short. She can still talk. As I called her 'P' from kittenhood, every time I say this letter now, she responds with 'eee.' I really wonder how she would have responded if I had repeatedly called her by her full name(!) from a young age.

When I was a little girl, someone locally found a chick lost on some waste ground. As my dad was well known as a soft touch animal lover, it came to us and I raised it in a cardboard box which was balanced on top of the gas fire in the sitting room.

I called it Sally. And lo, it came to pass that when Sally got feathers, that Sally was a cockerel

Sally used to ride on the handlebars of my bike, and I'd take him for walks on a collar fitted round his body under his wings. I have a photo of him perched on my shoulder where he'd happily stay.

Unfortunately, much as I loved him, and he loved me, he hated most other people and would chase after my dad, pecking his legs.

I've had a lot of eccentric animals - Sir Francis the drake who played fetch, Crisp the goat who loved dad to the exclusion of all others, Kracker the goat who used to let herself out of her pen then open the one she wanted and kick the other goat out and shut herself back in, and more recently Schrodinger the cat who was a terrible thief, but Sally was my first love.

Our cat had recently holed herself up in our carpeted, plush furnished Reception room. We, of course, had no idea ... we assumed the moggy to be in her basket outside, but she had sneaked in and made her home where she was not supposed to. It was days later that we discovered the 'boudoir' that she made for herself - settee all scratched up, cushions strategically dragged behind the sofa, a fresh little 'turd' in front to mark her territory!

Had to invest in a new £129.99 Vax W90-R-UP carpet washer to aid in cleaning the room up .... job still not done!!!

But apart from that, she's a bundle of joy !!!

boffin That'd be a brilliant kids story!

I was going to come on and say something equally interesting about my rats!

CMOT Kracker sounds brilliant!

I have two female rats who chose DP and I. We had two girls who we rescued last March, in June we found a tumour on one of them, sent her for ops and whatnot but it was clear that it would kill her at some point. So we called around breeders, eventually booked two baby girls to join us in August when we came back from our holiday.
The week before we were to go on holiday, we popped to our local breeder's shop where she had five or six baby girls in a cage waiting for their new owners to pick them up, but two of them hadn't been picked. As soon as we went to the cage to open it two girls jumped straight out and were playing with us, the others were not interested in us at all. When the breeder came to show us which two needed homes it turned out to be the two we were holding. Needless to say they came home with us and we cancelled the other pair!

I never got it when people said that their pets chose them but I do now!

I also have Ashi, who is my runt and gorgeous, he's also very funny. He plays peek-a-boo with me, has no common sense and just walks straight off of things, gets "stuck" on a step and will sit there waiting for you to pick him up, he's also a great cuddler and boggles like mad.

Rats in general are hilarious, not an hour goes by when I'm at home that I haven't laughed at something one of them has done. Our girls had a t-shirt spread across the cage halfway up last week and were jumping from their hammock at the top of the cage onto the t-shirt as if it were a trampoline. We give them all whole corn on the cobs and it's hilarious watching them attempt to take that up to the top of the cage.

My parents won't let me have a furry pet as I have eczema. So I have 5 tropical fish and a snail which live together. The snail is called Alan, and is peculiar because he keeps climbing out of the tank! This has happened several times but he doesn't seem to mind. We just keep putting him back in! One of the fish is a stripey catfish called Sherlock. He is nocturnal so we rarely see him move. We only know he's OK when we see that he has moved to a different position the next day. If only we could see what they get up to during the night ...

Rattie, like the Hunger Games but with rabbits ....

Oh my, I now want a bicycle handle-bar riding trans-gender cockerel!

DC4 (5) has a balloon he has called Brian. Seriously. It has his name on in felt tip and everything.

Archie is white with a black spot centre back and a brown patch over his right eye. Really he should have been called Spot or Nelson. He's a four year old Jack Russell with a massive personality. He understands many human expressions and moods and equally displays a variety of facial expressions himself. He makes everyone smile with his passion for ball catching and his wiggly walk and hard tail flapping emphasise this. In fact I am woken every morning with either a ball or sock pushed fervently up one or both nostrils, followed by a pirouette and walking away only to return and repeat the process. In fact from the moment anyone wakes it is all about Archie. It's either food time, play time, or walk and befriend time. I say befriend time because every walk consists of Archie walking zig-zag fashion to anyone and everyone and insisting (by dropping the ball at their feet), that they throw repeatedly until their arm feels disjointed or they laugh so much and he walks on to discover his next ball throwing servant. We return home to guess what? Yes food time, then a spot of TV while on my lap and eventually bed. No, not his bed....nor my husband and my bed, but our bed. You see he lies peacefully at the end of the bed until the humans sleep and then nose butts under the cover, flops , and slides down on a thigh and falls asleep. The humans are far too drowsy and exhausted to notice or even care! That is our Archie.

My 7 year-old daughter's story about her cat (typed up by me) :

My cat Mog is grey with a white flash under her neck. I have had her since I was three and she is really sweet and cuddly.

One day we noticed that her breathing sounded strange so the next day we took her to the vet. She had to have an injection and lots of tests but she was very brave.

We found out that she has lots of allergies and asthma! She used to have an inhaler every morning and evening but only has it sometimes now. A little while ago she had a cat scan and they found something wrong with her nose so she had a balloon put in it! Whoever heard of such a thing?

It is her birthday today and she is 5! I love my cat and hope I win the book.

My cat chaged personality completely. He started out as the most anit-social animal ever and stayed like that for nearly five years. Some family members never saw him and I was the only person allowed to stroke him. Then I had kids. The other half was suddenly allowed to touch the cat without repurcussions and my son and daughter play with him. He changed to placid, happy and good with people and has been like that 5 years. Personally I think he's an evil mastermind who's just lulling us all into a false sense of security.

When I was about 10 there as a knock on the door one evening and when my parents opened it there was a large policeman there holding a tiny little bundle of fluff!!
Somene had found a tiny duckling and handed it into the police station, we lived nearby and close to a river and the policeman wondered if we could look after it - it had only recently hatched and still had bits of shell stuck to its beak.
My mum said it would probably die but we could have a go. I called it Enoch ( no idea why) and set it up in a large laundry basket with some water and crushed up cornflakes. Enoch did survive, despite our large dog and 2 cats but had to follow me everywhere. I often went to the local shops with her perched on my shoulder under my coat and when I slept I put the washing basket next to my bed but if I didn't hang my arm over the edge so she could see me she would squeak the house down.
She eventually mastered going upstairs but coming down involved a kind of falling rolling motion. Enoch wasn't keen on water, which was slightly odd being a duck - mind you I don't think she knew that. I started by teaching her in the bath but she didn't much like it and kept trying to get out. She would only get in if I got in too and then she would paddle around for a bit before climbing up me to escape. We then decided to graduate to the river outside our house, I waded in but Enoch wasn't too keen as it was much colder than the bath so my Mum " encouraged" her in. She sank like a stone and had to be pulled out squeeking indignantly, I wrapped her in a towel and took her inside to get dry by the fire and feed her cornflakes ( still her favourite) by way of apology.
We persevered with the river and eventually Enoch became quite the swimmer but she still came " home" every night when it started to get dark for cuddles and she still liked to sit on my shoulder and nibble my ears.
One evening she didn't come home and I was worried that the fox had got her but a few days later she turned up at the front door, quacking. I fed her but she didn't want to come in and wandered off again. This carried on for a while and it could go a few days without us seeing her and she started to get a lot warier and wouldn't let me pick her up anymore when she did come.
Enoch vanished for about 3 weeks and I thought she had gone for good until one day I heard quacking by the front door and there was a duck there with 5 ducklings!!!
Of course I can't say for sure it WAS Enoch, ducks look pretty similar but I would really like to think it was.
We probably saw her a few more times after that but other than possible sightings on the river that was it, she never came to the door again. We carried on living by the river for some years after that and when I fed the ducks I used to hope that I was feeding some of Enochs descendants even if it wasn't her.

This is Poppy she is a cheeky westie doggy who is a happy but timid and can be a bit growly if disburbed while sleeping. Her favourite thing is walkies and long runs off the lead where she runs in circles. She loves baths but then has to get dirty immediately afterwards, I tell her off for getting dirty and her ears go back and she wags her tail. She is saying dont be cross with me mummy!

We have a tortoise called Tommy. He can move so fast and zoom around the garden. His favourite hobby is chasing Buddy the golden retriever round the garden and biting his feet. x

My cat Charlie was always trouble from day 1, always up to mischief, pulling down the christmas decorations as soon as I'd put them up but the funniest was on his very first day out. I live in a lovely woodland area so get lots of wildlife so Charlie was in his element on his first day venturing into the great outdoors. I was in the kitchen when I heard lots of fluttering outside so I ran to the door to see Charlie holding on to the tail feathers of a very large wood pigeon which was far bigger than Charlie himself. The wood pigeon was trying to fly away but Charlie wouldn't let go but he was so small that the wood pigeon literally lifted him off the ground with just his back legs scraping along the ground. If I hadn't grabbed Charlie he would probably have been lifted completely off the ground but as I grabbed him the wood pigeon flew away much to Charlie's dismay.

My dd2 had an unusual pet.
We got one of those kits of caterpillars a few years ago. When the caterpillars hatched out, they all looked fine, they pupated (if that's the term), and were a wriggly as they always were.
When they came out we noticed that one of the butterflies didn't seem to be able to fly (they have a huge enclosure) and when we looked closely, we realised that the wings were bent, a little like a letter M. Dd2 was born without her hand so she identified with this butterfly having more difficulties than the others.
When we'd had them a week, we went to release them (as you're meant to), and four butterflies soared up to the sky, and this one fluttered a little round the garden, but couldn't get more than 6" off the ground.
We took it back into the enclosure after it had spent the afternoon fluttering round, and clearly getting exhausted. Dd2 was in tears because it was clear it wouldn't survive for long outside. So we contacted the people who sell the butterflies who said they can live in captivity.
This butterfly lived about 6 months, on flowers, fruit and sugarred water. Dd2 used to let it out and it would flutter round her, choosing to land on her little arm and walk up her.

My cat is called Adam West - hence the username.

He knows he's not allowed on the tables & kitchen surfaces, so of course it's his heart's one desire to get up there.

He's also obsessed with finding bits of food on the floor, and spends a lot of time just licking the floor on the off chance he finds something tasty. He also likes to sit in the open dishwasher and lick the dirty plates.

Anyway, a few years ago I had some friends round for a birthday tea, featuring a vast and decadent banoffee pie made by my mum, who is a baker of some repute. When the party wrapped up, I accompanied my friends to the door and then wandered back into the dining area.

Adam West was on the table, legs splayed, face buried in the banoffee pie. This event was unprecedented in his life.

I was about 10 paces away so I shouted, "ADAM WEST!"

He looked up, face covered in whipped cream. We stared at each other like cowboys in a Mexican standoff. I saw him rapidly consider his options.

And then he stuck his face right back into the banoffee pie and began scoffing it as quickly as he could.

He'd demolished about a quarter of the pie before I got to the table and literally threw him off it, shouting "BAD KITTY! OUTSIDE!"

He stalked off, a look of pure triumph on his face: "Worth it."

Our previous beloved Border Collie Jake once hung his rear end over quite a high sided paddling pool in our garden, and in front of visitors, did his 'business'! oh the shame!

This is my best friend NooNoo, her real name is Maisie but only the vet calls her that. She was around one year old when I brought her home from the rescue centre. She had just had an operation to remove 2 large hernias from the inside of her legs. They thought that she got them from the exertion of giving birth. No one knows where her pups were, chances are they had died as she was really too young to give birth. It was decided that she should come home with me to recuperate from the operation. I don't know who was more scared on the car journey home, her or I as I had never had a dog before and was scared of the responsibility.

She spent a week hiding under the bed in the spare room, full of fleas and ticks, scared witless to come out. Slowly she grew in confidence, at first only coming out at night when I was in bed. Then she would peer out the crack in the door and watch my every move. I could feel her fear. Eventually she found the courage to run round the kitchen table before dashing back to her sanctuary under the bed. One afternoon I sat on the floor of the living room with my back to her. It took her about an hour to approach me. Slowly sniffing all around before she eventually decided to surrender and laid down in front of me, showing me her belly. We never looked back from there.

We had many adventures after that. Like the time we had to be rescued by the fire brigade from a window or the time she got lost and eventually found her way home 2 days later. We've emigrated together, moved home 4 times, DD's birth and so much more.

Apparently she is a 'rescue dog' as she comes from a shelter. I agree that she is a rescue dog, but not for that reason. She is a rescue dog because she saved me from my depression and has not only kept me physically healthy but her love has kept me mentally strong too. I think in those early days we saved each other. Sorry if that's a bit sentimental but that's exactly how I feel.

When I was a kid in the 1960s, my dad came home one day with a young, adult English Bull Terrier. We had recently lost our beautiful 6 month old EBT - and we were still all heartbroken. He knew a breeder who had kept Candy for her breeding programme, then realised she wasn't 'good' enough to breed from, so she had only lived in a kennel, never in a house.

The day dad brought her home, she stuck her head in a metal watering can. And given the weird shape of a BT's head, she couldn't get her head back out of it. Her genius solution? To bang her head (with watering can helmet) against the house wall, hoping it would fall off.

She was full of character and continued the way she'd started. Recently, an old childhood friend I lost contact with in the 1970s, contacted me on FB, saying one of her happiest childhood memories was coming into our garden by the back gate, and always being greeted by Candy bowling her over. I was very touched that led to my old friend having a lifetime love of EBTs.

Candy was quite an escape artist and we'd often find her running along the top of the Yorkshire drystone walls that surrounded our orchard. If she legged it, she'd let you almost catch up with her then run, frustratingly only a couple of yards ahead of you, just out of reach...

When I was about 7, I thought I'd help my busy dad out by bathing the dog. So I set to with a hose pipe and a box of 'Flash' (because it made things sparkling, according to the ads). She was particularly clean that day (or hour - she never stayed clean long). I'd dress her up in my ballet clothes and dressing up things, and wheel her about in the wheelbarrow. She put up with anything.

When my son was little I caught him one day trying to ride on the back of our elderly golden retriever. The dog was the sweetest most patient dog in the world who used to sleep near the crib. but this day I said 'Stop that or she might snap now she's old' he replied 'No She wont she just bends in the middle' Aww sweet memories.

The Life-saving Puppy!

My pups Meldrew & Blackie were about 10 months old when we got them from a rescue home. both like a whirling dervish, they would have their mad half hours and then some! Blackie was a collie cross (though a cross with what we'll never know) and she would have us in fits as she was so clumsy! She pulled two muscles in her hip after falling backwards off of a sofa, she had her nose stung by at least three bee's as she was so nosy with insects, she even jumped out of my bedroom window one afternoon to chase our car down the street as we were going shopping! But we adored her, she was such a lovely friendly dog, while Meldrew, a border Collie, was more quiet, such a loving cuddly dog who wanted to be treated like a giant baby, but still a bit of a mad case when he wanted to be and I will never forget one afternoon we all decided to go to the local lake to do a spot of fishing.
My dad and brother and my dads friend set up while I decided to walk the dog round the lake. It was huge, and I was a good way away when I looked down to see my feet sinking slowly into the mud, I tried to move back, but my feet were well and truly stuck! I then panicked and seemed to sink further and further down by the second.
I started to cry as I was petrified that no-one would hear me, and it broke my heart when my Meldrew and Blackie legged it too, now I was completely alone....I was freezing and almost up to my waist by this point in thick sludge, crying, filthy and cold, when I saw the dogs were both back...WITH MY DAD! He told me to stay still, and after them all fetching a tow rope from my dads car, they could pull me out.
Freezing we drove home, my clothes stinking, me sat on a load of old newspapers while my brother laughed at me (swine!) but my dogs huddled against me, I think thy were trying to keep me warm. When we got home, my dad told me how both dogs had run back to him, and just gone mad, properly barking loudly and then running away, then barking and running away, and they knew then something had happened to me.
Sadly both dogs are gone now. Both though reached the grand age of 20, which for a dog is pretty good going. They saved my life, and I was so happy to share my life with them, love you pups. xxx