Fun things your pet does

[Darlica]

We have been reading about Chatty's little Spencer making the moves on the dog sitter, conning her on  frozen yoghurt and other delicious stuff.

What fun, disturbing or disturbingly fun things does your pet do?

Our late family dog, William, smiled. Yes, smiled. Every time I came to see my mother after I moved out he would be standing on the porch on his hind legs, yap like a puppy and show all his teeth in a big grin, while wagging his tail like crazy. No. not a pretty sight, but kind of cute, I wish we had video taped it but we never did.
First time I saw that it actually frightened me a bit (Irish Terriers have a lot of teeth, cosy and snuggly as they may look with their mouths shut ), mostly because I couldn't read that mixed message. It sort of reminded why one shouldn't smile widely when greeting a unfamiliar dog... 

He also learned how to simulate hiccup when we were eating or preparing something he coveted, like grilled chicken or smoked salmon... 
I really miss him, it's almost two and a half year since he past away and it still brings tears in my eyes to think about him, it brings a big grin too but still.

Ludvig the present family dog, who also lives mostly with my mother, is still to young to fully have developed any odd behaviours, but his working on it. He's far to smart for his own good (just like his mother who among other things masters the art of opening doors)! I suspect I will have more stories to tell about him as time pasts.

/D

[Pachyderm]

We used to have a Dachshund when we lived in Nigeria. His name was Toby. He was about 3 and a half feet tall, a throwback to when they were hunting dogs, and as quick as a whippet.

His party trick was to wait until my dad was home from work, nicely de-stressed and relaxed, then jump off the jetty. The creek he was leaping into with such gay abandon was originally called 3 Cowrie creek, but had been renamed among the expat community as 3 Cow creek, after the 3 dead cows we discovered floating past one day.

Now, if you would be so kind, look at the tabletop your computer is resting on. Place your hand flat and level with the surface, just off to one side. Now lower it 4 inches. Imagine that the tabletop is the water level in the creek. The point 4 inches lower is where you can no longer see your hand if you submerged it.

Nasty, but not the end of the trick.

The only place the dog could get out of the water was under the big bridge, roughly a mile downstream. However, to the hundreds of homeless Nigerians living under the bridge, the mere presence of a dog was terrifying enough, let alone one that apparently left the safety and security of the nice expat houses to chase them around under the bridge.

A splash from the jetty would be followed by my Dad dashing to the car, and fighting through about 3 miles of Lagos traffic to get to the bridge, eventually catching the dog, who was returned to the garden under a cloud, and scrubbed. Funny thing was, he hated getting bathed. Guess he thought the swim and panic under the bridge was worth it.

[anthrobabe]

I foster homeless pets from time to time until homes can be found or even the great joy of finding "my people"---
anyway got a call late one night from Karen(manager at animal control) they've just had to take in a mother and 9 puppies and would I take a "couple" of puppies(weaning so would eat) for a "few" days.
Well I wound up with 6 wriggling labrador puppies in my single wide trailer.
They promptly solved the "playpen" issue so we moved the furniture to block the hall and kitchen access- well literally overnight they leaned to climb and I came home to the sight of
one giant bag of puppy kibble that I'd left up on top of the couch back lying in the floor-- burst open-- with a pile of puppies laying on it that were so stuffed that they could not move, if you've ever seen a tick that has gorged until it falls off then you can picture these puppies, they couldn't move but they were happy to see me so it was sort of a wriggling pile.
I thought I was going to die, then I thought that they might die from eating so much- so they were all loaded up and taken to the vet where I was told that their would probably be some ill puppies for a day or so but probably no real damage.

I wish I had pictures--- everyone of them has a home and people of their own-- they wrecked my house(we had to tear up the carpet) and ate the couch (another vet visit story- they ate it, not just chewed and shredded it up- they ate some of it) but I'm so glad I had the experience.

Now I have 3 cats- they know that in former lives they were royal pharoah cats and expect to be treated as such.... hillarious pests are really what they are. But do I love them--- you don't even know.

[The Meromorph]

When my grand-daughter (TT) was just learning to get about, and used to come and visit us, she was delighted by our stairs. She'd never been in a house with stairs.
She worked out one of the common ways little kids learn to deal with coming down stairs - sitting on her bum and scooching forward until she would bump down one step, laugh like a drain, then do the next step just the same...
Our dalmatian Lucy did not approve of this at all!
If Lucy noticed TT doing this (we would be sitting in the room at the bottom watching TT - who did not want us 'helping' her!), Lucy would rush up the stairs stretch herself out over about the next four stairs, with one front paw on either side of TT, and her face right in TT's face. TT woulld scooch down a step anyway, (laughing like a drain). Lucy would wriggle down one stair as TT bumped down, keeping one paw on either side, and lick TT's face. Lucy would then look quickly over at us with an outraged expression "Why aren't you helping her? ", and sometimes give a little angry whine at us. The TT would scooch down another step, etc....
When she got all the way to the bottom, Lucy would give TT's face one last licking then run over to us and 'chunner' at us for a minute, giving us a good telling off, meanwhile TT would laboriously crawl back up the stairs, and off we'd go again...

[Sibling Chatty]

Today, Spencer learned to con the teller at the bank drive-through out of double Milk Bones rations.

Even a banker's heart can't withstand those pretty Schnauzer eyes...

[Scriblerus the Philosophe]

My dog, Snapper, is far too smart. We kept him kenneled in the garage when we first got him, and built a puppy corral to keep him from getting out at night. Or it was supposed to.
Every night, for the three weeks we kept him out there, he escaped. We would modify it every night, attempting to figure out how he got out, and he'd still escape. We would find him sitting in front of the door in the morning when we went to get him. Or he'd come running out of the maze of stuff to whoever came to feed him, wagging his tail.

[goat starer]

all my goldfish do is die 

hilarious!

[Sibling Chatty]

Try bettas.

They're--betta!

[Bluenose]

When we were building our current home, we rented a house that had a small hallway outside the main bedroom and it held a linen press with sliding doors.  One night just after we had gone to be we heard the distinctive sound of one of these doors being opened and then being closed.  I got up to see what was going on, thinking intruder etc and could see no one around. Figured I must have been imagining things and went back to be.  Same thing happenned the next few nights and finally on about the third of fourth night out of curiosity I decided to check out the linen press and found one of our cats, Max, asleep on the towels.  He had been opening the door and then after gettig inside the cupboard he closed it behind himself.  If I had not seen the evidence with my own eyes I would not believe it, but he did have form - when we first moved into that house we locked him up at night in a back bedroom since this had been our habit in our previous home (in fact Max used to get very naughty if we did not "put him to bed" on time and once we made moves to his room he would come charging in and plonk himself in his bed as if to say "about time!")  Anyway the door was twisted and so it took a little bit of effort to close it properly. but it did and seemed to be quite secure.  We noticed that occasionally Max would be on the loose in the morning and we put it down to us not shutting the door properly and the door springing open.  Then we noticed that when this happened the light in the room would be on.  Now the door handle was a round wooden knob about 3 inches in diameter and the light switch was the large rocker type that were popular in the seventies.  We finally worked it out that Max had been jumping up to the door handle and somehow managing to turn it, and accidentally in the process, flicking the switch and turning on the light!  After we realised he was doing this we stopped locking him up at night and then he developed his penchant for the linen press, which persisted on and off until we moved to our new home.

[Scriblerus the Philosophe]

Lol, very nice. There are some smart kitties out there.

We recently went to go see Stardust, and left my dog inside for the two hours we were to be gone.
Driving home, my sister noticed a dog about three houses down from ours, and as we drew closer, we discovered it was our dog! We opened the door, and he jumped in the car with us. He'd busted the front window screen trying to get out!

[anthrobabe]

ummm Goat--- try putting them in water next time
or are they commiting suicide?

http://uk.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20070922155506AANIaod

[Griffin NoName]

There are some smart kitties out there.

... and you can smarten yours up - at bonsai kitten.      

[Sibling Chatty]

Spencer has, in the past, been known to hide my shoes when I start getting dressed.

Today, I left my medbag on the floor. It's HEAVY. It was--unfindable. We looked everywhere. Then...I remembered putting my cell phone in it, so we called it from Dan's cellphone.

My medbag was in the Doggie Pillow Corner, covered in Doggie Blanket.

I'm just gonna get him a set of keys and a driving license and HE can go pick up meds and shop for groceries...

Sneaky little stinker...

[The Meromorph]

Our three big dogs used to sleep in the living room.
Then Layla (the boss) decided she wanted some time without her sisters and started sleeping in our bedroom. After about three months the other two decided they'd like to sleep there too, so they all followed her in each night. Made it quite hazardous for me to wander over to the bathroom in the middle of the night...
Then Layla decided this was stupid, and about one thirty she comes and wakes me up to let her out. She walks up beside me, and shakes her head so her ears rattle to wake me up, and then trails me as I go to the door and let her out, then she sleeps on her own in the living room.
After about a year, Lexie (the youngest and biggest) has decided that she's entitled to similar treatment, so about half an hour after I've let Layla out, she comes and wakes me the same way (rattles her ears next to my head. I then have to pad over to the door as she trails me, and open it. Then she won't go out!
I thiink she just wants to prove to herself that she could if she wanted to...

[Scriblerus the Philosophe]

Nice.

My dog is notorious for waking people up at night. He'll sit in front of you, and stare. Stare until you wake up. And then he'll grin and pant at you until you let him out.

[Aggie]

Try bettas.

They're--betta!

They are funny, funny fish-peoples.  Our betta, Buddy, comes when called and swims around fluttering his fins & trying to be a pretty-boy to beg for food.  He likes to sleep at night cradled in the leaves a half-submerged spider plant.


We also have 6 White Cloud Mountain Fish in the vase, but they are more or less just hard-wired feeding machines.  They always beat Buddy to any food in the tank*, but are totally oblivious to them funny-looking things on the other side of the glass.


*We usually feed frozen bloodworms to the fish.  The 'whiteys' pick up all the individual pieces that melt away from the block, while Mr. Piggo bulldogs the biggest piece he can find.  It's inevitably too big for his mouth and by the time it's small enough to eat, the rest of the food has disappeared. He is very intelligent, but not very damned bright....  reminds me of mom's poodle.

[Sibling Chatty]

I love bettas. They've got personality, where other fish generally don't. (Some of the bottom-cleaners and suckers do, but that's from interaction that's forced. Bettas seek attention out.)

Dad used to get 3-4 female bettas, watch the nesting behaviour, put males in 'just long enough' and then raise bettas to sell. We'd keep 5 or 6 bowls with a male in each, and allow the females a long rest before breeding them again, unlike commercial breeders.

One year, he didn't bother to try marketing them and we had over 100 fish in vases, bowls, large glasses, you name it, it had fish in it, including Mom's crystal. We gave them away in the neighborhood along with care instructions. Five years later, most of the neighbors still had a betta or two hanging around. They're beautiful.

[Bruder Cuzzen]

The couple down the street moved away in September and of course took Kitkat with them . She would wail  through her apartment window at me or anyone she knew for what seemed to be hours if she was alone up there .

I warned them about her penchant to be out and about hunting and sucking up to strangers on the street , or trying to catch pigeons on the Danforth (a busy street made somewhat famous the Bare Naked Ladies ) .
Well , it seems they felt a bit guilty of depriving her of the fun she used to have with me  , one of my roomies  saw her being taken out for a walk in a harness and leash .
I suppose they were deathly afraid of losing her like i did and they weren't about to take chances .

I still miss her and think of her a lot , i miss her antics , i miss her cursing out my roommates ( "Chad" witnessed me one day pushing her about as she was wolfing down some tuna .
She gets pissed when people bother her as she eats her favorite meals and makes constant meowing sounds with her mouth full until the offender stops .
It was outright hilarious , i stopped bugging her at supper tyme , but would do it for visitors who never witnessed such a thing .
I imagine she was trying to say ." Dammit , bugger off , leave me be , ye bastid !"

I become her custodian  whilst helping a friend move into a new apartment . When we were idling away in the parking lot, the super and his wife came out carrying two cats , a big tabby and a wee calico .
The previous tenants abandoned them ! Both were beautiful and unafraid of humans , it broke my heart not being able to take them both .
My bloody friends egged me on to take them both , yet none of them would take either , the bastids !

Anyway i took the female home since i was afraid Fritz might not take kindly to another male ( I was mistaken , Fritz tolerates any other cat in the house as long as their body language agrees with him .)

After six hours traveling to and fro i finally get Hissy ( Kitkat's name at the time since she would hiss at us if we didn't let her run about freely , she had never been outdoors before ) into the house .
Fritz was napping on his couch (as usual ) , the moment    Kitkat saw him she bolted and hid away crying non stop .
She did this for about two weeks , a bit of a shock to me since she had lived with another male tabby for all her young life at that point .

Fritz just ignored her . I must say it was a very distressing two weeks . I forgot what I did to finally relieve her of her fear , but after two months she became the boss of the house .
I put food down and she would get right to it often pushing Fritz out of the way ( he would just back up a few feet and wait his turn ).
He looked a bit despondent so I went out and purchased another food dish .
She quickly lay claim over all of Fritzies favourite perches ( the top of the stairs , my room , Chad's room , Don's room , the basement , the kitchen etc. Poor ole Fritz relegated himself to the living room where kitkat was told off by Fritz if she ventured in .
Fritz never went upstairs again when kitkat was here .
She followed me around like a leech as well as my housemates . We would spend so much time catching her ahd tossing her back in the house when we left for our jobs .
She stopped short of following my mateys into the subway and would take her sweet time getting back home .
A number of times strangers would take her home with them ( but I suspect she just followed them into their homes ) .
But she would not shut up if she wanted out , so I guess the people had enough of that racket and let her go back home.
In my case , she would follow me ANYWHERE ! , if I had to take her to the vet all i had to do is walk there . She would at my heels and all I had to do is open the door for her . Fritz , however, is never more than 50 feet from the house and knows what a cat carrier is all about , the three of us tried to get him into one and it was an exercise of absolute futility , the mere site of one and he disappears .

The last time i got him to the vet i had to carry him inside my jacket , he pissed on me as we came to the intersection waiting for the light to turn green . He calmed down a bit as soon as i let him perch atop my shoulder though .

I remember when kitkat was in heat , she used to follow me about and if I settled down to a table , desk or messing about the kitchen she would be there to jump upon the surfaces and begin the slow process of knocking every damned thing on the floor , this went on for months .
She learned she could escape the house ( after the cat door was removed , I thought i saw Fritz in the basement until I realized the "tabby cat" was three times the size of Fritz) . Kitkat discovered that she could jump up to the backdoor ( if i had the window section up a notch ) squeeze her head through and force the screen out with her head . I figured out she was doing this as one day while heading off to the market I heard a familiar sound of metal tags tinging at my heels . It was kitkat ! Tis much bewildering at  the time since not 30 seconds earlier I had tossed her back into the house after her darted past me .
She also learned that when Don left for work at 5 or 6 am , she could crouch down by the door and it still being dark out , could easily sneak out past him and follow him to the subway station .

The calico had so many admirers , the local school girls would be by three times a day to fawn over her . A few times an entire class would be walking by on a field trip and she would stop the entire procession . She became accustomed to this and had to be out at 8 am , noon and 3pm .
One neighbor didn't like her free roaming ways one bit and came by to let me know she was  using their backyard as a dumping ground all too frequently ( apparently the neighborhood cats took a liking to his yard ,  i believe it was because of all the birds ). I brought them some  "pest begone" ( mostly pepper ) , it helped and all the other neighbors took what steps they could to address the problem .

Being aware that cats can carry some deadly parasites and he had young children it wasn't a problem for me to try to reign Kitty in a bit . Boy , was she pissed at us for keeping her confined . She clawed me couple times but stopped when she found out a smack on the hindquarters was to be expected in return .

This is getting long winded and I'm beginning to misspell everything , i'd like to share more stories of Fritz and Kitkat another time , G'nite .

[pieces o nine]

Long story short, I am in a house in the suburbs.
[This may not be the very last thing I expected to occur in this lifetime, but it ranks down towards the bottom of the list.]

Dom thee Danger Catte is adapting pretty well to everything and moving into Feline Middle Age with all the dignity he can muster. His favorite spot is the very back of a cedar-lined under-stairs closet, where he can contemplate things in the dark.

Silent Bob loves the tiled floor facing the walk-out downstairs patio. He uses it as a burnout pit (e.g.: motorcycle aficionadoes here enjoy revving up their bikes in a more-or-less stationary position before slipping off the brakes and peeling out in a spray of dust and noise). No dust or roaring enhgines, but he does essentially the same thing -- runs in place making scrabbling sounds on the tile until he suddenly shoots across the floor. He never tires of this game.

[Bruder Cuzzen]

Fritz , every few months will jump on me and head butt me continuously .
Sometimes ( about a dozen times a year ) he has his wee tongue sticking out , it is outrageous to see and always has me laughing .

So far he is the only cat I've seen do this .

[anthrobabe]

The betta "Maniac" has learned to beg food at the top of his bowl.
He has obviously figured out that the slightly fuzzy blobs in 'dry outerspace' not only *scoop him out from time to time for cleaning(oh the indignity) but also that is where FOOD comes from.
As he lives in the kitchen it's usually me moving about- so here's this fish floating at the top of the water-  very much looking almost right at me as if to say-- OK hurry up lady I be starvin in here!


*gently and slowly scoop him out- in a cup of water-no netting and dumping going on.

[Bruder Cuzzen]

Fritz loves to box , I have a hundred scars to prove it , generally he doesn't draw blood unless he's stoned and he is well aware that he is faster than me .
It is when I put on my " gauntlets " that he stops pulling in his punches , he'll jump up on my arm and start chewing away , often clamping all four sets of claws on me while trying to puncture the gloves .
We have had matches that went on for a couple of hours , after I shake him off and rub him into the carpet he'll snare and growl at me , then run off for me to chase him or find his latest ambush spot .
If I give up looking he''ll reappear and dart past me so I can resume the chase and fight , if I try to walk away he'll run to my feet at " love bite " my heels .

It's his favorite past time .

[pieces o nine]

Dom thee Danger Catte used to love to play like that! I made shoulder-high "oven mitts" out of layers of old blue jeans so that he could really sink in his fangs and back claws, yet not draw blood. He liked to rough house as much as he liked to fish (chase a catnip toy on a long, long string attached to a dowel rod, up & down the hall, up a& down the stairs, over the sofa, straight up into the air, etc.).

Once Moufette passed on, though, he settled down a lot. I miss his wild side.

[Sibling Zono (anon1mat0)]

I made shoulder-high "oven mitts" out of layers of old blue jeans so that he could really sink in his fangs and back claws, yet not draw blood.

My birds frequently while on my bare shoulder decide to 'slide' down my arm leaving skid marks. In fact I have some very thin blood line in my right arm from one of those. I should take them to have their nails filed.

[pieces o nine]

^ to stop those school-boy pranks, install a newell post on your elbow...

[pieces o nine]

Thread Necromancy!

I arrived home tonight to find Dom in the middle of the living room, yowling like a cat who hasn't eaten in at least 15 minutes. He'd jumped on a desk and batted off some paper to play with -- he likes standing on a magazine and fanning the loose edge of the pages up from the floor with his paw; he can do this over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over until I have had ENOUGH. Then he looks at me like, GEEZ, what is it now?

The comedy part is that the paper he chose to play with was a coupon book from a local fast food place in the junk mail. I was going to take it to work and leave it in the break area for when people forget their lunch but forgot it. So I arrived home to find Dom yowling to be fed NOW, surrounded by coupons for "Buy one Meal X, get one X Sandwich Free!"   "Buy a Sandwich Z, get a Fries for Free!"   "Buy one Meal Y, get a Shake Free!"

He's been known to accept a french fry now and then, but never demanded his own "Happy Meal" before!  Alas, he just got cat kibbles.

[Bob in a quantum-state-of-faith]

LMAO!

Clearly, it was all your fault that his new toy had broken...

[Opsa]

He was just trying to save you money, and look at the thanks he got. No-one listens to dem kittehs. It's a crime, I tells ya.

[Bruder Cuzzen]

Here's a story I believe to be true as relayed by a mutual friend . It appears Jim lad left a package of funny tobacco on his dresser and went off to work . His dog was bored and hungry I suppose and ate the entire 7 grams or so . Apparently he loves the taste of the stuff and Jim has realized that he cannot hide the stuff from that canine sniffer . Mum cannot understand why Rover sniffs around Jimmy's clothes , bags or his pockets with a whiny looking expression . Since he's a dog that loves to eat in excess anyway she doesn't realize when he has the munchies after successfully findinga bud or two . Hah ! What a mutt !

[Aggie]

 

[Griffin NoName]

Maybe I should turn into a dog !

[pieces o nine]

Ages ago I had a roommate who partook of the herb with her SO. They blew smoke at their cats, who were in no way held captive for it (I would not have allowed that!). The cats liked it. They liked it so much they snorted in smoke as fast as they could (almost dog-like sniffing) and then ran to the full-length mirror and look at themselves.  For up to 10 minutes at a time. I would have loved to know what was going through their cat minds at those times, as they (like normal cats) never looked twice at a mirror under normal conditions!