On the way home from school the next day I went to the library and borrowed a copy of Perfect Puppies by the skilled-yet-scary dog-trainer celebrity Monica Sitstill.

If there was anyone who would have persuasive arguments about breeding and puppies and so on, it would be Ms Sitstill, the Guru of all things Dog-Related.

When I got home I took the book into the kitchen and sat down to read while I drank a cup of hot chocolate. Honey had followed me into the kitchen and was now lying under the table so I massaged her with my slipper-socked feet. It really was getting quite chilly now that the season of autumn was here, and Honey’s soft fur made a lovely cosy footrest.

I flicked through the book, looking at the pictures of Ms Sits till to start with. She was what Mum called a FORMIDABLE lady, which means that she was strict and bossy and ordered people around a lot – in other words, she generally got her own way. It would be nice to get my own way for a change, I thought. I decided to get myself a leaf out of her book and use it To My Own Advantage. I started reading:

Breeding from your female is a joy! It is a miracle to see new life unfolding before your eyes, and to watch Nature take its course.

This was exactly the kind of spot-on information I was looking for, I thought to myself! After all, you cannot argue with Nature.

If, after considering all the pros and cons, you decide to go ahead with breeding, the first thing you must do is find the right mate.

This sounded sensible, I thought. I was soon so engrossed in flicking through the pages that I hardly noticed when Mum came into the kitchen with the Ironing Pile.

Mum hates ironing almost as much as I hate the eight times table. It is one of those things in life that you wonder who could have possibly invented, as it seems like the biggest waste of time imaginable.

As far as I can see, you stand there for hours, HUFFING AND PUFFING about how horrible it is, and in the end all that happens is you have a huge pile of clothes which are nice and smooth, but which will only get wrinkled again the minute you put them on. Honestly, grown-ups seem to actually prefer to make things complicated for themselves.

‘Hi, Summer. What are you reading?’ Mum asked, peering over the Mount Everest of wrinkled clothes. She was obviously PROCRASTINATING, which is a posh word I have learnt for ‘wasting time instead of working/doing something else which is more urgent’. (I love saying, ‘I am PROCRASTINATING,’ because it sounds like I’m doing something important, instead of just wasting time.)

‘Nothing,’ I said, quickly covering the book with my hands.

Mum shrugged and went to get the ironing board.

I was not yet quite ready to Bring Up the Subject of puppies until I had all the facts at the tips of my fingers. (It is always more effective in a persuading situation if you do this, I have found.)

But I felt a bit bad for not telling her what I was doing, especially as she was so clearly in a procrastinatory mood, so in an effort to involve Mum a tiny bit, I called out:

‘Mum, what are Pros and Cons?’

She came back into the room, smiling. ‘It means “good things and bad things”,’ she said. ‘Before you make a big decision, it’s wise to think carefully about both the good things and the bad things that could happen.’

I must have had my puzzled face on because Mum said, ‘How can I explain it better . . . ? I know – imagine that you and Molly want to go to the cinema on the bus without an adult. Well, Molly’s mum and I would have to weigh up the pros and cons – in other words, we would have to think about whether it was a good thing for you to do something so grown-up on your own, or whether in fact it would not be safe enough and therefore would be a bad thing.’

‘Oh, I see,’ I answered, going back to the book.

I personally could only see the Pros of my idea, and not any Cons. But just as I was thinking that may be I should show Mum the book after all I ran into a list of Cons I had never even thought of:

Matching your female dog with a suitable male is an art in itself and requires a lot of time, effort and – sometimes – money . . .

Uh-oh, I thought. Mum is seriously going to be put off the idea of Honey being a mummy if she sees the words, ‘time’, ‘effort’ and ‘money’ all in the same sentence. Honestly, you would think that someone might have advised Ms Sitstill not to write in such an unhelpfully scary way.

I decided to read on in the hope that eventually I would soon come to some Pros which I could use later in my very well-planned conversation with Mum.

The first top tip, or ‘golden rule’ as Ms Sitstill put it, was this:

1) KNOW YOUR BREED

Well, that wasn’t difficult! I knew that Honey was a Golden Labrador Retriever. And I knew that she was a pure pedigree with no other type of dog in her except Labrador Retriever – in other words, she was not a crossbreed.

The reason I knew this for sure was that I had got her from Frank Gritter, winner of Honksome Sock Wearer of the Year Award, whose lovely pooch, Meatball (yes, that is her real name, poor thing), was Honey’s mum.

2) KNOW YOUR STUD DOG

I wasn’t one hundred and one per cent sure of what exactly a stud dog was. I knew that a ‘stud’ was a little gold thing that you had put into your earlobe when you had your ears pierced, but somehow I didn’t think that dogs had to have their ears pierced before they had puppies.

I looked up ‘stud’ in the glossary:

A stud dog is the dog who will be the father of the puppies.

Aha! I turned back to the main section, feeling as though I was at last getting somewhere. But what I read next filled me up with more and more concerns of an anxious and worrisome nature:

Is the stud a good breeding dog? Is the stud’s owner a responsible breeder?

As far as I could see, Perfect Puppies was asking me more questions than it was giving me answers! How did I know whether or not a stud was a good breeding dog? How would I even find a person who had such a perfect stud dog? And how would I know all the correct and important questions to ask the breeder when I met him?

I sighed heavily and sank down under the table to lie next to Honey and stroke her soft velvety ears.

‘What are we going to do, Honey? You’d like to be a mummy, I know you would.’

Maybe I should ask Nick about all this? I thought. But then I realized that he would be bound to check whether or not I had asked Mum’s permission, and even if I lied, he would find out from April.

I was about to fall down in the dumps with despair when I had a binding flash of inspirational thinking. Unfortunately it was nearly Literally blinding, as I jumped up when I thought of it and banged my head on the table . . .

Frank Glitter! He would know all about how they found a proper stud dog for Meatball, AND he would be able to tell me all about how much it cost and – this was the most exciting part – he would be able to tell me how much money they had GOT for the puppies they had sold!

If Honey had puppies, we could sell them! Surely Mum would not say no to a money-making scheme like that? She was always moaning about how much money her daughters cost and especially how April was running around having a riot with her credit card, even though she had a job of her own, etc, etc, and on and on like that.

The Pros of this blindingly mega-brilliant flash of inspiration were obvious, I thought to myself.

The Cons were that it involved talking to the One and Only Putrefying Pong-Meister of Year Five: Sir Freaky-Stinky Frank Gritter the Sock Stencher.