First of all, my apologies to anyone who might have been mislead by this thread, thinking they might be reading some animal anecdote a la Camus.
Nope, I just mean plain old funny pet stories.
Mu hubby has the best ones.
When he was a kid, his family was pretty poor. There were five kids in his family, and his dad was a trucker, so one can imagine.
Anyway, they had a pet hamster that they just adored. He was the coolest. They actually dressed him up. One of the things they put him in frequently was one of those little plastic football helmets you could get from the candy/token machines at the grocery store. They’d plop the helmet on his head and he’d rear up on his diminutive legs and look like he was getting ready to make a pass.
One day beloved hamster had what can only be described as “an incident.” He got one of his legs stuck in his metal hamster exercise wheel. The kids went crazy when they noticed this, crying and wailing for the poor little hamster. So, my mother in law did what she had to do and took him to the vet.
Long story short: $75 dollars later, the hamster is alive and well, but with one less leg.
When father in law returned from his truck trip, and heard about “the incident,” he flipped out. I mean, back in 1978 that kinda money would’ve bought about 25 hamsters!
My brother had a friend who lived some distance away, maybe 30-45 minutes by bike. He rode home one evening and walked into the kitchen still wearing his big parka. He produced a box of cat chow from one big pocket; “what’s that for?” asks my mother. He produced a kitten from the other big pocket.
His friend’s cat had had kittens and he brought one of them home on his bike, in his pocket!
Fifteen minutes and one stern conversation with my father later he was back on the bike, taking the kitten back where it came from. There’s no justice in the world.
One day Coz, the big gray cat was snoozing on the back of the couch in the afternoon sun. Apparently Bo, the blue-fronted amazon felt his territory was being invaded, so he climbed down his cage, onto the arm of the sofa, up to the back, walked over to the cat’s tail and bit it!
In a moment of great restraint, Coz whacked Bo with his paw, sending the parrot ass-over-tincup to the floor, and resumed his afternoon snooze.
Undaunted, Bo climbed back up the couch and again bit the cat’s tail. Coz jumped up and hissed at Bo, and moved off the couch with an air of “Screw you-have the damn couch.” Bo watched the cat retreat, and spread his wings, Rocky style.
Well, my family had this tomcat and a female Pekinese dog, and the dog was in heat, and the animals decided to get friendly…that was an interesting site.
Boots (Bookitty) has had to put up with a lot, so far…
When she was just a kitten, she decided to put her paw up on the big wire cage in the computer room. I guess she figured there might be something interesting in it. Unfortunately, there was.
Boo puts paw on cage, Freddy pokes nose out of nest. Freddy disagrees with Boo’s paw placement.
Rat bites cat.
Now she’s completely terrified of him, although she’s ready, willing and able to take out the wild rats. Well, except for Chewy. You see, Boo had been systematically picking off a whole litter of just-weaned rats from under the house. Now, I’ve always wanted to try taming a wild one, having had fairly good results with wild mice. Poor Boo! Mr.zoogirl happened to catch her in the act, and relieved her of a particularly lively specimin.
I hope that rat never finds out her name is short for “Chew Toy” !
I live on our family farm and we had a pure black cat called Feenie. She was the boss of all the animals including this big dog we had called Charlie(about the size of a German Shepard)…he was scared to death of her. She liked to jump on his head while he was sleeping and claw him.
One day Charlie was chasing one of Feenies’ youngsters(pure black too) into the haymow and he had just disappeared when I heard him yipping and then he flew out the door going yiyiyi with Feenie right behind him.
It was incredible…first him chasing a black cat into the mow then two seconds later a black cat chasing him out of the haymow.
The whole thing took about eight seconds total and was the funniest thing I ever saw.
My stepdad had a friend who is a housepainter. He was painting some lady’s living room one afternoon and had a tarp laid over her carpet around the area he was painting. The lady of the house did not put up her little yappy lapdog, so most of the afternoon the dog sat there growling and barking at him while he painted. Long story short, the painter got careless and stepped backwards onto the edge of the roller pan, which flipped up and spattered paint beyond the tarp and onto the lady’s carpet. Without batting an eye, he picked up the yappy little beast and slung him into the pan, thus blaming the incident on the dog. Gotta hand it to the guy, quick thinker!
My girlfriend and I used to drive the bird watchers nuts at Point Pelee and Rondeau Provincial Parks when we took our cats birdwatching. The cats had a great time.
I was trying to point out the humorous homonym error.
This isn’t all that unusual; it’s normal dog behavior, but was highly amusing. A couple of weeks ago my mom was shampooing the living room carpet. She was at least 3/4 of the way through when our half-Yellow Lab half-Golden came charging into the room, from the back yard, which was quite muddy.
The pawprints were GORGEOUS. The choice was simple: kill him, or laugh about it. He’s still alive. THIS time.
Until abou the time I entered Middle School, we had a long succession of hamsters.
My father’s favorite activity with these hamsters was a study in the simple tool-making skills that have made human beings what we are today. Hamsters are naturally curious animals, and they like dark places. So first we discovered that setting a paper towel tube next in front of a hamster would prove an irresistible temptation for it, and it would crawl in.
It wasn’t long after that Dad discovered that the hamster’s fur so neatly fills out the diameter of the tube that a gentle puff into one end of the paper towel tube results in the hamster being propelled projectile-like, limbs splayed and pupils dilated, out the other end of the tube.
Yes, hamsters are naturally curious animals, but luckily they are not naturally intelligent, nor do they have long memories. That’s why we discovered it was even more fun to blow into whichever end of the tube the hamster was currently making for. As you brought your lips to the mouth of the tube, you could just see a brief flicker of realization and terror in the eyes of the hamster as it suddenly recalled exactly what was on the other end of the tube that last time. Then the trick was to pause just long enough so you could hear the hamster skittering around inside the tube, trying to turn around and make for the entrance, before you blew into the tube and turned the entrance into an exit.
I had a hamster when I was in middle school. My room was upstairs, and so was the hamster cage. Well, one night, the hamster escaped. He made his way to the door to the attic and crawled in.
The next morning, we couldn’t find that hamster ANYWHERE. I mean, we looked for HOURS for that thing. That night, my parents heard some scratching in the walls. They woke me up, and we started Hamster Search Round Two. Our search led us to the attic. Up against one of the walls, the insulating had parted from the floor about an inch. There was a hole that went straight down through the wall to the bottom of the first floor. Guess where the hamster was. So, we’re sitting there, peering down this hole at a hamster that was about 15 feet below us.
So good old Dad rigs up a Hamster Retrieval Device. He cuts the top off of a pop can and pokes a hole in each side, to which he attatched about 20 feet of fishing line. We lowered it into the hole, waited, then pulled it back up. Miraculously, the hamster had become entangled in the fishing line, and was hoisted back up through the hole!
Unfortunately, I think the fishing line hurt his foot, because he had a limp. Also, something was wrong with his eye. He died a few days later. That was the last hamster that found its way into the Roadkiller household.
And here’s a more recent story that has to do with my spazcat, Cookie. I walked into the bathroom last week. As I looked toward the toilet, I noticed that there was mud EVERYWHERE. Mud on the toilet, in the water, splattered on the wall, on the carpet. I could not for the life of me figure out what happened. So I cleaned up the mud, then went into the living room. There lies muddy wet Cookie. The only explination I had for this incident was that Cookie got into some mud. Then she came into the house, hopped on the toilet for a drink of water, and fell in. Of course, she spazzed out and flung mud everywhere.
A few years ago, I got a kitten and a cat from the humane society - Sunshine and Junebug. They were both very sweet - but Sunshine was definitely the more aggressive, always looking for attention, following me everywhere - poor Junebug never had a chance.
Anyway, one Saturday night I was watching TV, and Junebug was stepping on my lap, begging for attention - Sunshine was nowhere to be found. I thought this was strange - I went calling for her, throwing a ball with a bell - she didn’t come out. Now, I know cats hide sometimes, so I didn’t think about it - just went back to TV. It started to bother me though - and suddenly I jumped up and ran to the fridge. See - Sunshine followed me everywhere, and poked her nose in everywhere, trying to get into everything. Well, about 1/2 an hour ago I had gotten a glass of water from the fridge…So - I opened the fridge door, and there was my little kitten, shivering on the shelf! No permanent damage - and didn’t stop her from poking her nose in the fridge every time I opened it. The saddest part of the whole thing, though, is poor Junebug - she finally got undivided attention, but not for long!
I still have Sunshine - I had to have my poor Junebug put to sleep a little over a year ago (cancer - I got to hold her and say goodbye). Sunshine got to know how Junebug felt though - my new kitten, Miss Jody, was just as demanding about attention!
I have two little Chinese Crested puppies, Gizmo and Amber, and the stuff they get up to is so funy.
Gizmo goes to puppy school. On his first lesson, the trainer was using food rewards to teach him to sit. Well, little Gizmo ran around in circles, leaping at the trainer’s legs to try and get the food in her hand. She tried for twenty minutes, but he would just would not sit.
“Well,” she says to me. “I think we’ll teach this little one to come first.”
Years ago, I had two cats named Thomas and Dolphie. I brought them home with me to my dad’s house, when he had a cat named Daisy. Daisy was a meanie, and she hated my guts.
One evening, I was sitting in the easy chair in the corner of the living room. Daisy was behind the chair, growling at me. Thomas and Dolphie came into the room and heard this, so they decided to take matters into their own hands. Thomas went into the hall next to the living room. Dolphie then went behind the chair, which flushed Daisy out and caused her to run out from behind the chair, into the hall, right into Thomas. They proceeded to rough her up a little. My kitties defended me! Not sure how they planned such a thing, but it seemed planned and well-executed. Maybe it’s the same kind of thing they would have done if they were trying to catch a mouse.
Thomas is in Kitty Heaven now, but he was always my protector. I miss him.
If my cat Mock is awake, she has to be in the same room with me. This includes while I am in the bathroom, so I can’t even close the door sometimes. When she was about 6 months old, I was in the bathroom blowdrying my hair, and Mock was perched on the toilet seat watching me. I usually keep a running chatter going with her, and I was warning her about falling into the toilet. Two seconds later, I felt cold water splash onto the back of my legs. Seems Mock had been stretching to play with my hair and lost her balance. Naturally, she was offended that I laughed at her, but she still won’t stay off of toilet seats.
Another time, my roommate and I ordered pizza. When the doorbell rang, she started to hand me the money, but she dropped it instead. Mock raced up, grabbed the money in her mouth, and ran off with it. Smart kitty, I have always said.
When I was about fifteen or sixteen, I had a weird problem with my hair. It was all different lengths! A lock of hair would have strands varying as much as an inch. In a word, my hair looked ragged. Even after I’d get it trimmed, it was ragged again a day or so later. I thought I had a problem with brittle hair and spent a fortune on curative shampoos and treatments.
Then, one night, I awoke to find that I was not alone in bed. My brother’s gerbil, Portia, had been squeezing out of her cage at night, chomping off bits of my hair with her teeth, and carrying them back to line her nest. (Although I shared a bedroom with my brother, she never molested him. She only liked my hair. Go figure. )
A few nights ago, I saw my dog lying on the sitting room carpet eating something. It wasn’t a bone, a dog chew or anything else I recognised, so I decided to get up out of my chair and take a look.
Turns out he’d just thrown up all over the carpet, and was now recycling his food by eating it all up again. First I couldn’t believe what I was seeing, then I was shocked that he could be such a filthy little beast. Now I think it’s hilarious :D.
