Light thread - What weird things do your pets do?

[kbutton]

All former pets...

 

Growing up, our cat was kind of stand-offish. When she grew old, she'd climb on your back if you were sprawled on the floor, and then she'd try to groom your hair. She wasn't fond of people playing with her tail, rubbing her belly, etc., but she'd let my friend's dad do this as long as he took his shoes off. He had reputably stinky feet, and our cat would curl up around his feet, purr really loudly and let him play with her. She also liked to climb my parent's very tall (real) Christmas tree and take a nap in the branches (very carefully without knocking ornaments off). She once got upstairs (not allowed normally) and got stuck between the upstairs floor and the foam ceiling tiles in the kitchen's suspended ceiling (we had added on a room, and there was an opening between the two in the attic space). We found her milling around the kitchen meowing very loudly and swishing her tail--she'd fallen through the ceiling, narrowly missed the table, and didn't break the ceiling tile--it was perched on the edge of the table.

 

SIL's cat jumped sideways instead of walking most places, squeaked like a mouse, and like to flush toilets. She found out about the toilets after she got an $800 water bill and subsequently caught the cat flushing and then staring at the water going down the hole.

 

DH's bird knew the sound of his first car, and he'd greet DH at the door when he got home from high school.

[Amy in NH]

Our dog likes to play ball.  He will lie down and roll the ball to you with his nose, and then wait for you to roll it back.  If he's really bored he'll play by himself; he rolls the ball away with his nose and then pounces on it, like a cat, before carrying it back to his bed to start over.

[Liz CA]

Just thank you for starting something other than police violence and Christian vs non Christian views...my dog throws his head back and flips his ears out until he looks like one of the flying nuns in that movie by the same title when - was it Shirley McLaine? - flew all over the place with her nun's habit flipping in the breeze.

[SparklyUnicorn]

I read recently that this is not weird/unusual, but I've seen my cat eat her fur.

 

 

[DawnM]

My dog farts and then jolts around like she is in shock about where the sound came from.  Then she sniffs and sniffs like she is clueless about where the smell came from.

 

 

[momacacia]

Growing up, we had a beagle that ate carrots. Yup, would hear my mom starting to peel carrots and would race into the kitchen to beg. Dog was probably a vegetarian and we didn't know it.

[Liz CA]

Growing up, we had a beagle that ate carrots. Yup, would hear my mom starting to peel carrots and would race into the kitchen to beg. Dog was probably a vegetarian and we didn't know it.

 

My dog snacks on carrots, celery and rutabaga and he is most definitely not vegetarian. :)

 

[amyco]

I thought of some  more weird things my cat does!  She has started occasionally pulling used Q-tips out of the kids' bathroom trash and playing with them all over the house...she can entertain herself for a good long while this way.

 

Also sometimes when I feed her in the morning I will find a rubber band in her dish.  What the heck?  The only way she could find one is if she was cruising the counters in the wee hours.  I don't know why they always end up in her dish.  Maybe she's taunting me.  More likely she's just weird. 

 

As a kitten she had to chase every single piece of kibble across the kitchen floor before she would eat it.  Now she only does it once in a while when she's bored.

[Storygirl]

My cat loves shoes. She will sometimes rub her face in them, but most often she nestles her own feet in them (one in each shoe) and then sits contentedly as if she is wearing them.

 

My previous cat played fetch when he was a kitten. He would bring his little pompom right to me, especially at night, because I could throw it out my bedroom door and across the apartment for him. It was adorable, except when he would dip it in his water bowl first and bring it to me wet. Or worse, when he would dip it in water, then roll it in his litter box, and then bring me a wet, crusty surprise. When he wasn't playing with his pompom, he would keep it in his food bowl.

[BarbecueMom]

My cat thinks she can nurse humans back to health. We all had a stomach virus last week, so she took turns sprawling across our abdomens. Joint pain? Curls around my legs. Back pain? Kneads it out better than a massage therapist.

 

I don't lay down for headaches. She gets rather suffocating, literally and figuratively speaking.

[Starr]

We have a cat that thinks lose guitar strings are mice. She's so happy to find one. And she badgers us until we sit on the rug in front of the kitchen sink with her. We are so well trained. My dc always were good about entertaining themselves but this cat wants company to play. She has us  throw scrunched pipe cleaners for batting practise and to play catch...If she wants attention she jumps in a cupboard or on a shelf and knocks things off...on and on it goes. :D

[Mom in High Heels]

My dogs are just little weirdos.

 

Bella (Yorkie-5 lbs) likes to sit on the back of the sofa and sniff my hair.  She pokes her nose right up against my head and moves it around, sniffing.  I'm constantly pushing her off of me.  She likes to sit on James Bond's neck when he's on the sofa.  No particular reason that we can figure out.  She loves drinking straws.  If a straw comes into the house (like from a fast food drink), she MUST have the straw or she goes crazy.  She also has a thing for cucumbers.   She hates the telephone.  For the longest time after we got her, any time the phone would ring, she would bark like crazy.  I changed the ringtone, thinking maybe it hurt her ears, and turned the volume down, but she still barked, and continued to bark the entire time we were on the phone.  If we left the receiver on the sofa or coffee table, she would bark at it until we moved it.  About 6 months after we got her, she finally stopped.  If she's outside and anyone other than us talks to her, she pees.  It's a PITA when we order dinner, because they always say hi to her, and...pee.

 

Jack (Pomeranian-4 lbs) has some serious problems.  We recently acquired him.  He was abandoned by his previous owners, who paid a fortune for him, and spent a good amount of time training him, so we gave him a home.  He's freaking nut.  He hates paper with a deep and abiding passion.  If he gets hold of any kind of paper, he shreds it with singleminded determination.  He doesn't eat it, he just shreds it.  He also has a thing for telepods (tiny little figure with a code on the bottom that allows you to scan them into Angry Birds games).  He doesn't mess with any other small toys, just telepods.  I've yet to figure that one out.  He will not eat hard food at his bowl.  He takes a mouthful (he's tiny, so it's not a lot), and carries it to the dog bed or the rug in the LR to eat it.  There are also some pieces he won't eat for some reason, even though there's only one kind.  Some pieces he pulls out, licks, then drops on the floor.  Bella cleans those up.  He also likes to "bury" his food, and "dig" it up later.  He'll "dig" just under the dog bed, deposit his food, then walk away.  A little while later, he'll go back, "dig," then eat it.  He likes to clean ears.  Eww!  He's always cleaning Bella's ears.  I was worried, so I took her to the vet to see if there was something wrong, but they were fine.  She doesn't mind, so I let him be.  He tries to clean our ears too, and I'm constantly yelling at him to stop licking mine, or Han Solo's ears if we'er on the sofa.  Indy freaks out and moves.  He also has excited pee (my floors are incredibly clean, because I'm ALWAYS mopping them!).  Indy can't talk to him at all, because he pees the moment Indy says something.  Of course it could be because Indy is always baby talking to Jack.  He's so freaking adorable it's hard not to baby talk him.  For a while, Indy couldn't even look at him without Jack peeing.  He gets so excited.  Luckily, being so tiny, it's just a few drops, but still!  Indy can talk to him, and even pet him now, but ONLY if Indy is sitting and Jack has crawled in his lap.  If he does it before Jack makes it to his lap, Jack will pee.  He has to wear one of those "boy wrap" things, to keep him from sprinkling on the sofa.  

 

Pepper, our Shihtzu/Pug mix who passed a few years ago was sneaky when it came to toys.  She and our other dog, Dutch (Pekingese), who passed this summer, would play, and if they had toys, she would leave hers somewhere, take his, then run back to her toy, lay on top of it, and play with his.  She also loved Christmas.  She would leave the packages alone, but on Christmas morning, we would give her a toy wrapped in paper before anyone else, and she would take it under the table and shred the wrapping to get to the toy.  It was hilarious.  We had to give her her own package to open, because she wouldn't leave Indy alone. She wanted to open the packages.  If you asked her if she wanted to go outside, she'd make this weird noise that sounded exactly like she was saying "NOW!"  She was the best dog.  I miss her so much.

 

Dutch used to like to "exercise" with me.  If I was doing crunches, he'd lay on his back and wiggle around making weird sounds until I was done.  He liked oranges and ice.  When he wanted my attention, he'd head butt me until I gave it to him.  He had what we called his "Elvis" face.  If you baby talked him, he'd pull his top lip up into this weird little grin that looked like the Elvis lip curl.  He wouldn't sleep without a certain toy.

 

I love animals.  They are quirky and have the best personalities.  Best of all, they're not afraid to let their freak flag fly.

[Lizzie in Ma]

We have an older Aussie Shepherd, the older she gets the funnier her OCD gets.

Pick up a trash bag and she goes nut.

Open the front door, even a hundred times in a row and every time she will bark, run outside and bite the car tires.

[Dmmetler]

I have a cat who is...a little special. Very sweet, but I have this feeling that if there were a feline IQ test, he wouldn't score too high. He will chase his own tail, catch it, and then look around to see who bit him. ONly to do it again when he notices his own tail.

 

He's 12 yrs old. You'd think he'd learn by now that that grey fuzzy thing is part of his body!

 

He also regularly gets his claws caught and can't seem to remember that he can retract them.

 

 

[Paige]

My cat will only drink off his paw. That means, he sticks his paw in the water, and then licks off it. In the process- every stinking time!- he discovers splashing is fun. So it's, "drink, drink, splash, splash" every day. He makes a mess and there's nothing we can do because he has to drink. 

 

When we had dogs and there were separate water dishes, the same cat would drink out of the dogs' bowl and then turn around and pee in it tainting it for them when he was finished. He'd drink from his own bowl until we discovered the issue. And it was definitely personal because now that there are no dogs but the same amount of water dishes, he never pees in them. 

 

Same cat will also terrorize overnight guests if they sleep anywhere accessible to him. He regularly waits for them to sleep and then jumps on their head or chest, then runs off. We try to keep guests locked away from him but sometimes people don't listen to our warnings and leave their doors open. It doesn't matter if we warn people- it's still surprising each time. 

 

Same stupid cat requires two litter boxes- one for number 1 and another for number 2s. 

 

He's not the sweet kitty in my avatar. She only licks plastic.

[applethyme]

The calico cat thinks she is a dog.  She will sit in the window and growl when strangers approach the house.  She also has no trouble clawing people who make the children cry.  When the kids are sick and taking a bath she walks around the edge of the bathtub howling until the kids get out of the tub.  When the kids are in bed and supposed to be sleeping if they make to much noise or bounce around too much she goes and lays on them. 

 

The other cat follows dh all through the house.  She will steal toys from dd and bring them to dh.  In the morning its not unusual to find calico critters littering our bed and the floor on his side.  Sometimes during the night if she is very excited by her latest "find" she will howl and bat at dhs face until he wakes up to see what she brought him.   

[Clear Creek]

My cat likes to eat cheetos and french fries. Whenever we have any, that cat will beg and beg until my husband tosses him a couple. My cat also likes to knock full cups or breakable decorative items off of bedside tables or dressers if we sleep too long in the morning and he thinks we should be awake. He hates small children (who aren't members of our family) and has a reputation for charging at them with a loud yowl and chasing them out the front door (he weighs 19 lbs., so he is a very large furball when he puffs up). He eats paper of all types (so no wrapped gifts under the tree until Christmas Eve), string, decorative ribbon, and hair (his own and ours) that he finds on the floor. He loves to lie on books that are being read, computer keyboards, and school desks. He enjoys sleeping with his head inside a family member's shoe, the stinkier the better. He licks the footbed of old, smelly flip-flops. He enjoys a good game of peek-a-boo from around the corner, and has since he was a kitten - I peek around and say peek-a-boo, and he does a weird, broken meow...I hide, then pop around the corner and he does the same meow again. We can play it for several minutes straight, to the kids' great enjoyment. He can open the pantry door with his paw (it has a traditional doorknob), knock down his food bin, and pull the lid off if he thinks he is going to miss a meal and starve to death. He only sits on laps if the person has a blanket across their lap.

 

My cat is almost 15, has pacreatitis attacks and 70% kidney failure...I am going to miss him when he goes :sad:

[dirty ethel rackham]

Oh, and another thing my dog does ... he plays the "couch game."  He take his favorite ball and shoves it under the couch and stares at the edge of the couch waiting for it to come out.  Then he dives after it.  Mind you, he is a tall, lanky, 70 lb labradoodle who definitely does not fit under the couch (which often gets shoved back a few feet.)  If he wants company, he will bark at you and stare under the couch until you get it. 

 

He also loves to play hide and seek.  He takes his ball into the bathroom right off the family room, drops it and barks to get your attention.  We then tell him to sit, shut the door, and then hide his ball.  We open the door and tell him to find it.  He actually responds to "hot" and "cold" commands to help him locate it. 

[LLMom]

Our kitty jumps (not just stands) on her 2 back legs and begs for food like a dog.  Actually, she is a lot like a dog in other ways. 

[celticmom]

If our dachshund/pomeranian cross sees a stream of water coming out of a hose outside, he ferociously attacks the water. It is pretty hilarious.

[AlmiraGulch]

Another cat collects socks from around the house (and even hunts through the laundry or drawers) and prowls the house meowing with them in his mouth like he just made a big kill.  If we're gone for any period of time, we come back to a pile of socks. 

 

 

My old lady cat that just died used to do that!  I'd wake up in the morning with a pile of dead socks outside my door, and I'd know it was going to be there because she announced it all night long.  

 

Or she'd just bring it to you and drop it at your feet.  Loudly.  Very, very loudly.  

[*Lulu*]

I am currently looking at the young dog curled up amongst the throw pillows on the couch.

 

It does not matter where the pillows end up, that is whe she will lay.

 

On the floor, in the corner, where ever the most pillows are- that is her spot.

[Dmmetler]

I had a cat who would open the drawers in my dresser. And drag what she found around. Nothing like having a kleptomaniac cat with a lingerie fetish....

 

(I still miss her-she died due to kidney failure two years ago).

 

 

[AlmiraGulch]

I once had a cat who did a few weird/adorable things.

 

First, my ex and I used to collect Botero figurines.  If you're not familiar, Botero is a Colombian artist famous for depicting people and things in "large, exaggerated volumes."  In our case, the figurines were quite rotund women.  This cat hated those figurines, and ended up killing all of them.  He somehow got on our mantle and weaved his 17 pound body in and out of all of the candlestics and other things and knocked all of our Botero's directly off the mantle, shattering them into little pieces.  And that was the end of that.

 

He also thought I was pregnant with his kittens when I was expecting DD#2.  He's sit on my lap and purr as loudly as he could, and I think she could feel the vibrations and would start rolling about, and pushing out my belling with her hands or feet, and he'd push them back in, she'd push out, he'd push back in...they'd play forever like that!  When she was born she came home on a heart monitor, and he would perch himself on the side of her bassinet and then crib when she slept and just stare at her.  If she moved strangely, or if the monitor beeped, he'd run and get me.  I also have pictures of him sprawled out on the floor in front of the fireplace, sleeping, and my baby girl sleeping on him like a rug.  It was the cutest thing ever.  

 

This same cat used to use the toilet, too.  I didn't teach him....he just started doing it one day.  

 

One of my cats now can open doors.  I'm talking about the kind with round handles.  If the door opens inward and he wants in, there's no keeping him out unless you lock it.  

[*Lulu*]

I had a cat who would open the drawers in my dresser. And drag what she found around. Nothing like having a kleptomaniac cat with a lingerie fetish....

 

(I still miss her-she died due to kidney failure two years ago).

We had a kleptomaniac cat when we were first married.

 

She took money, DH's paycheck, my engagement ring......

 

She also loved to knock things off the counter to the dog.

 

Thanks to her conspiring the dog ate my copy of "A Separate Peace", more than a dozen boxes of tissues, sharpie markers, and there was a very unfortunate incident involving packing paper......

[zimom]

We have two labs, both inside dogs.   Z is DD1s dog.  She does EVERYTHING for Z, and has from day one.  If Z needs to go outside he comes and stands in front of me or anyone other then DD1 and stares at us for us to then tell DD1 that he needs to go outside.    He never goes directly to DD1 even though he is with her pretty much 24/7 and adores her :)

 

 

Avatar is Y, our other lab.  Y is DD2s service dog.  Z was in training to be a service dog but he didn't make the cut so was given to DD1 as a pet.

[mommymilkies]

My old lady cat that just died used to do that!  I'd wake up in the morning with a pile of dead socks outside my door, and I'd know it was going to be there because she announced it all night long.  

 

Or she'd just bring it to you and drop it at your feet.  Loudly.  Very, very loudly.  

I'm so glad mine isn't the only one!  I've had dozens of cats over my life and this is the first time I've encountered this!

[Ewe Mama]

Our 17 year old cat routinely wakes me up in the middle of the night after filching one of the microfiber cleaning cloths kept in a basket in the kitchen. She carries it through the house while meowing as loudly as she can with a mouthful of cloth. She stands just inside of our bedroom doorway and yowls until I thank her for bringing me the cloth. After being thanked, she drops the cloth and stalks out of the room for a few minutes before returning to curl up and go to sleep on my head.

 

Apparently my cat thinks I should be cleaning house at 2am to meet her standards of cleanliness.

[J-rap]

My dog used to run around in little circles and bark right before an earthquake.

 

 

[mrsrevmeg]

Our boy cat has been "hunting" recently. He got in the cabinet under our sink and "caught" an SOS pad. He proudly brought it under the Christmas tree. He also catches the stuffed gingerbread man ornaments off our tree and carries them under the dining room table.

 

Our girl cat thinks she is my middle son's dog. She follows him like a puppy. she comes to him when he whistles, she evens kicks her back leg when he pets her.

[Northwoodsmama]

This is such a funny thread! We have a newfoundland who is part cat- she catches mice and leaves them on the deck for us. She prefers only to drink running water from the bathtub faucet. And she drives the kids bananas "rescuing" them from their sleds and snowboards in the winter!