Do you speak dog?

Jo Good and Anna Webb do. The pair don’t just speak dog either – they live, sleep and breathe them, as you’ll already know if you listen to BBC London, where they present the brilliantly eccentric Barking At The Moon which, they boast, has “cornered the market in canines on the airwaves”.

Sadly, the pets themselves – Matilda, Good’s bulldog and Molly, Webb’s miniature bull terrier – have been banned from Auntie’s studios (they used to attend every recording) but Good assures me they listen to the show at home.

“I’d love a webcam on them – they’re probably cowering under a cushion hoping we shut up!” she guffaws down the phone from Webb’s flat in Islington.

The show is the result of a similarly improbable friendship that began when Good – who has a flat in Brighton’s Seven Dials and is probably best known to Argus readers for the BBC Southern Counties breakfast show she once presented – was tasked with interviewing Webb for a “dog-umentary” on “furkids”

– pets whose owners treat them as surrogate children.

At the time, Webb was working as a “doggie PR” touting products such as the Paw Plunger (for muddy feet) to cash in on the power of the so-called “hound pound”.

The film crew arrived to find Webb feeding Molly meatballs from her bra – “She’s Swedish,” offers her friend by way of explanation – and left after Webb and Molly had performed their “award-winning doggy dance routine” (both in purple legwarmers) to Locomotion.

Detailing the meeting in the pair’s new book Barking Blondes (How Two Bitches Taught Two Bitches To Survive Without Men), Good writes, “I was in heaven.

This was my reward for all the dull assignments the TV channel had ever sent me on.

I never wanted to leave.”

Webb, meanwhile, was more concerned about Matilda.

“I said to Jo, if you only take one thing away from today make it a slab of tripe.

I’m a firm believer that dogs, like humans, shouldn’t eat processed foods. Jo took it on board and as a result, Matilda is now a healthy dog set to live a very long life.”

The book is the story of a fine romance that takes the 12-legged foursome to the Parisian grave of Rin Tin Tin and Harrods’ pet spa, dog shows and rock gigs, and is strewn with doggie chews, discarded boyfriends and, of course, stray meatballs. At the centre of it all is dogs.

“We wouldn’t have met but for the girls and if I hadn’t had Matilda we certainly wouldn’t have become friends,” says Good.

“Anna doesn’t have friends without dogs and if she does, they don’t remain friends for very long.”

Clearly, the pair speak the same language and that language is dog. Although initially amused by the made-up language Webb would employ when talking to Molly, her friend admits she now does exactly the same with Matilda.

“Obviously, dogs don’t understand English,” explains Webb. “So all my life I’ve had a language for my dogs – frighteningly, the one I used for my first dog Minnie was different to the one I use for Molly.

“I’ve always felt in my heart that it’s a nice way to strengthen the connection between the two of you. They can recognise different sounds and your mannerisms when you say them and when you use a different language to talk to them they know that it’s just for them.”

For those wondering, “I’m just nip-noll to the sainsels”, is Webb telling Molly she’s just nipping to Sainsbury’s after which she will return with bags of goodies and probably meatballs.

Good had only recently acquired Matilda when she met Webb; the dog was brought into her life by boyfriend, George Webley, aka Have I Got News For You theme composer Big George, who died in 2011 and whose amiable presence can be felt in every chapter of the book.

Although she has never wanted children, Good readily admits that Matilda is a child substitute and the last remaining evidence of her relationship with George who, it transpired, had been leading a double life with a wife and kids in another county.

“Matilda created a nurturing hormone in me lost for over 50 years. I do now notice the young of other species and I can see that babies are cute but that’s only happened through Matilda.

“I still can’t see why anyone would want to give their life over to a child but I understand the urge a little more than I once did.”

Webb is more direct about her “furkid”.

“I think the only difference between a dog and a child is that generally children outlive their parents. It’s the cruellest act of fate that dogs aren’t programmed to go on forever, leaving humans to suffer probably the greatest pain ever.

“But in every other way it’s the same; you educate them, feed them, give them experiences and love them with every fibre of your being.”

One of the greatest crises Webb faces in the book is when Molly becomes ill one night; for Good, it is being informed that George has died.

She still feels guilty at being so wrapped up in work – the radio show, the dog shows they attend every weekend, a documentary about pampered pooches which they all starred in together – that she failed to notice George was not well.

As much as the dogs brought the two women closer, they simultaneously drove rifts between their other, human relationships although admittedly, when one is dating a man nicknamed Why Bother? as Webb was, that may not be such a great loss.

They remain a tight-knit foursome, frequently recognised around their London stamping grounds where cabbies greet them with the “woof woof”with which they greet their radio show guests.

Were they surprised Barking At The Moon took off in the way it has (it was recently upgraded from late-night to a daytime slot)?

“We weren’t surprised but the BBC was, and still is,” says Good mischievously.

“We’re a thorn in its side! Local radio is all news these days and doing a dog programme was like rewinding the clock to the 1950s when someone like Barbara Woodhouse would be on the air talking about how to keep dogs clean.”

But the show has a devoted fanbase and has attracted an impressive array of big-names guests, from singer Bryan Adams to pop star Robbie Williams, who pronounced it the best interview he’d ever done.

“He has seven dogs himself and totally got us. He didn’t want to leave. He turned his back on his entourage and just talked to us about every aspect of his life.”

For Webb, it’s a platform to encourage owners to take better care of their dogs; she is a passionate and devoted advocate who advises on everything from ringworm to nutrition.

“It’s so important to take care of our pets and make their lives as happy as possible – it’s the least we can do for them.”

So please dog-owners, if you take anything away from this article make it a slab of tripe.

* Barking Blondes (Octopus Books, £12.99) is out now * Jo Good and Anna Webb will be at Ropetackle Arts Centre, Shoreham, on Tuesday, June 25. For tickets, visit www.ropetacklecentre.co.uk