[squid-users] Parent proxy question

Hello.
i've set up squid for using a parent proxy as reported in the FAQ.
Here is the extract of my config regarding that issue

(...)
cache_peer proxy.dei.uc.pt parent 8080 0 no-query
prefer_direct off
(...)

The strangest thing is that there is no single report of squid using the parent, unless I try a bad server name... So it seems to be trying to go direct and if failing then go to the parent proxy.

Can anyone explain this behavior? I'm using Squid 2.4.STABLE1
Thank you.

-- 
                             João Pedro Clemente - jpcl @ rnl.ist.utl.pt
                             Linux 2.4.16 (LFS 3.1) on a i686 - up 4:02