Am I spending too much on feeding my cats? Why aye, pet!

DO you ever wonder whether cats and dogs have the power of speech but keep shtum to avoid being put to work?

Food bills are a pet problem in Casa Donna, which is why I spend half my life lugging trolleyloads of animal grub around Mercadona.

I’m convinced my cats understand both Spanish and English as well as their own un-purr-nouncable language. Catatonic, I think it’s called.

The whiskered ones are also as foxy as Basil Brush. They know that the moment they utter a recognisible word, I’ll have them working as interpreters to help pay the mogg-age.

So they just eat, sleep and play while muggins seeks ways of claiming animal meals allowance.

Tom and Dick...don't ask me which is which!

It's not so much the cost of feeding my black beauties, Tom, Dick and Molly (Molly's the odd one out in every way). A menagerie of feral visitors have also adopted the cat flap in my scullery door as an access point to a never-ending supply of edible gold.

Molly is the one exception. She doesn't do cat flaps, queues or being nice to other creatures.

''Cat flaps hurt my head,'' is her lame excuse (she’s also got arthritis in her legs).

''That's surprising since there's nothing inside your head,'' is my answer. ''And you've just given away the fact you can talk. Here are the car keys - go and do the shopping.''

Some hope. Molly is as bad as the rest of them. Just wants to sleep all day, eat all night, and spend the in-between time cleaning herself. It makes me lick (sick as well) that while the cats laze about, I fork out at least 50 euros a week to keep them in the luxury they demand.

So I was staggered to discover a while back that my friends Mark and Judith Heyes were spending only HALF that amount on food for their TWENTY-TWO pets.

The Guardamar garage owner and his wife were at that time their La Marina finca with three dogs, six cats and three kittens, plus 10 exotic creatures including a Vietnamese pot-belly pig, a tarantula, two bearded dragons and a toad.

Mark Heyes with Roxy

And Judith insisted the total weekly bill to feed all of them came to just 25 euros. Clearly I’ve gone wrong somewhere, or my cat colony is even cleverer than I thought.

 Back in the Heyes finca, son Jack was keeping a supply of crickets padded up to bat against bearded dragons Dane and Athena. in a game the insects could not win.  Most were going in feet first and perish LBC (leg before cricket, that is.

Add to Lola's website Charlie the Vietnamese pot-belly pig, tortoises Fred and Wilma, terrapin Crusty and toad Todmandu, and they were hosting the embryo of a mini visitors' centre which could benefit animal charities as well as entertain inquisitive youngsters.

Mark and Judith discovered the animal within long before they moved from Tyneside to Spain in 2002. Back in South Shields, their pets included three Great Danes and a snake.

Mark owned a garage in South Shields for 15 years before relocating to Spain and establishing himself as a top mobile mechanic in this part of the Costa Blanca.

He set up the Performance & Diesel Centre in 2007At home in La Marina, it was already raining cats and dogs, not to mention pigs and toads, as the pet colony heaed for saturation point.

Says Judith: ''Having built up his reputation as a mobile mechanic. Mark decided he needed a base to work from, other than our garden!.

''So he found a large unit in Guardamar  which is now equipped with four vehicle lifts, latest diagnostic equipment, and everything you need to run a successful business.

‘It’s worked out very well for us. But you’re spending too much on your cat food, pet.’’