Namings — Catford

The world’s most evil moggy,
so he liked to think,
was black cat “Ginger”,
his name and counter shade
caused him the bully curse
at army kitty school.

His great delight,
this small and fluffing cat:
when dogs arrived to greet hello
and sniff those places dogs must sniff;
he’d swipe each black and feeling nose
with slicing sharpest claws.

Even the best of dogs were stung,
for that was Ginger’s way.
But Brian was quite a special mutt,
and had the nous to more than howl;
he barked around, and quickly found
that every local hound had felt those claws.

Now Ginger loved to sleep
beneath his scratching tree
by the catfish stream.
So Brian got half the local dogs
to creep around and half–moon surround
the napping sharpest claws.

And on the count of “whine two three”
the dogs all barked the barking song:
“wr wr wr wr wr wr wr wr”
but stopped halfway through verse two.
Ginger panicked up, and ran the only no–dog way,
he rushed right through the water.

And now the devious plan enlightened,
for on the other side were all the other dogs
hiding silent at Brian’s behest,
until the soaking cat had landed there.
And then they barked, how sharp they barked;
the panicked cat, he rushed right splashing back.

And this is what a travelling landlord heard:
“Wr wr wr wr” “mwah!’ splash splash
“Wrf wrf wrf wrf” “mwah!” splash splash,
and saw the panicked echo cat
rush forth then back across the stream;
he’d found a drunken place to build his inn.

And to this day, we’ve heard of Brian’s barkers,
the famous “Catford Dogs”.