She's filing her nails while they're dragging the lake

Although I seem to have spent most of today on the computer I don't think I've wasted my time. Ned and his pals went walking in the Peak District, so once I'd walked the dogs and spent far too much money shopping, I settled at the screen to keep up with the gossip.

As some of you might have guessed, I'm a bit of a dog person, and go on several sites with fora for passing on information and general chat. A few days ago someone on 'my' breed site asked a question about genetics, saying that someone on Site B had posted pictures of newborn black-spotted puppies from liver-spotted parents - was this possible? The short answer is 'No' - basically black pigmentation the dominant colour, and dals will only show liver coloration if they have no black gene. As both 'parents' were liver they therefore had no black genes to pass on, so the black puppies couldn't be sired by the liver dog. With me so far?

So I joined Site B so that I could be Mrs Interfering and suggest that the proud daddy had probably been cuckolded and that mummy dog had been playing away. This went down like a lead balloon and I let the usual newbie-flak bounce off as it's only to be expected.

Then I went to look at other posts on the site. This same person had proudly posted pictures of the four dobermanns she was rescuing. Curiously they all had cropped ears (ear cropping's been illegal in this country for over a century) so were obviously imported, and I was curious and asked about them. Apparently they'd been imported illegally and had their ears cropped on the dockside at 8 weeks old. Anyone who's done any research at all about the process knows that's an ipossible scenario - after the actual cropping there are months of taping and posting to get the ears to stand upright. So that didn't ring true either.

There's also a section for cat posts on this particular site, and this same person had posted pictures of all 7 of her pedigree cats, all different breeds and confirmed when asked that all were on the active register (you'd understand that Lorry). One of the cats was very attractive so I went onto Google Images and typed in the breed. Well, I nearly fell of my chair. There were the exact same photos - one on the Wikipedia page for the breed. I put in the name of another of 'her' breeds, and blow me down, there they were - this time the exact same pictures were of a stray cat found in California.

That's when I had my Miss Marple moment. I google-imaged all the breeds she'd posted pictures of, and there they all were - her elderly 'Belgian Turvuren (sic) cross' was actually a blue merle American champion rough collie that died 17 years ago. The puppy pictures were from a dalmatian site about mismarks. The picture of 'her and her husband and their four dobermanns' was lifted from an American breeder's site.

So, 'she' was obviously telling porkies. But why? A sad, lonely attention-seeker? Maybe - but it turns out (after I'd subtly ("Wow! Your cat's picture's on the Wikipedia page! How cool is that?" etc) posted that she'd been rumbled, other people found even more evidence of the fantasy.

Then came the rather scary bit. Over the past few weeks 'she' had been in contact with other site members by email & PM and, with some of the younger ones, had offered to send more puppy pictures in the post if they'd let 'her' have their addresses, and would they like a holiday job with her, to help look after her dogs and puppies and horses (oh yes, she's been posting on a horse forum as well - her Shire horse had to be shot last week. Much sympathy ensued).

Am I right to find this very alarming? I've heard of 'grooming' before but I think I might have exposed a groomer (stop sniggering Mal), who of course will now vanish for a while, to reappear somewhere else. I've suggested to the Admin of the site that, while it could all be the work of an attention-seeker or a bored youngster, it could equally be something more serious and perhaps making a note of the IP might be a good idea.