An Open Letter To My Pets

The BBQ Pit
1

I love you all equally but I have some grievances. You may feel you outvote me, but since I have opposable thumbs and gather the food, I make the rules.

To my Conure
[ul]
[li]I know you’re happy to see me but could you please stop squawking at 120 decibels the instant I insert my key into the lock?[/li][li]Yes, you and the cockatiel have seniority over the dog and cat. That does not give you the right to carpetbomb the quadrapeds with poo.[/li][li]When you do score a direct hit, don’t give me the innocent look. No other creature in this house shits for accuracy or in the color green.[/li][li]I don’t make your food. The nice people at the pet[/li]store do. I realize they include things you don’t have a taste for. I suggest not eating them instead of hurling them out of the cage.
[li]If you stop hurling food hither and yon, I won’t have to let your archenemy Mr Vacuum in the room. And you can call Mr Vacuum a fucktard all you want, for he mocks you back.[/li][li]You are not Houdini. Stop trying to tunnel out at 3am. Yes, the pecking/scratching is audible to the human ear.[/li][li]If you wake up before me, try waking me up with a nice song. A sweet word. Perhaps a “mama?”. Not "OUT! OUT! MAMA! OUT! RAAAAAAAAAAAWWWWWWWWWWWWWWKKKKKKKKK!FUCKER!RAWWWWWWWWWWKKKKKKKKKKKKK!"[/li][/ul]

To my cockatiel
[ul]
[li] There’s a reason why I don’t let you out of the cage. You haven’t quite mastered the art of flying. Two hints - the wall will stop you but not quite the way nature intended and dropping ballast splort does not make you any more aerodynamic.[/li][li] I know you are very proud of the eggs you laid, but I swear there are no babies in them, unless there was a star in the sky. Until I am visited by Magi, I will distract you and throw them away. [/ul][/li]
To my cat
[ul]
[li] If you want to sneak onto my bed while I am sleeping, I’d suggest not crawling on my head or trying to get under the covers.[/li][li] The birds really don’t want to play at 4am. Please don’t pounce on their cage at that time.[/li][li] Whatever you ate/sniffed/saw that is making you run laps around the house at cheetah speed, please avoid it in the future. [/li][/ul]

To my dog
[ul]
[li] You cannot sneak onto my bed, unlike the cat. The cat weighs at most eight pounds. You weigh eighty pounds and have the grace of a hobbled rhino. She springs lightly and remains undetected while you land a paw on me full weight and wonder why I shove you away.[/li][li] You are a Pit Bull. A breed whose name invokes fear. Can you please not dislocate my shoulder running away from a squirrel? What do you think he’ll do, trip you and choke you with his fuzzy tail? Call all his squirrel buddies and go David vs Goliath on you?[/li][li] I feed you at the same time every single day. I have never forgotten to feed you. Please don’t nudge me into the kitchen when I am getting ready for work. By “nudge” I refer to not only the gentle nudging, but the full force “umm, kitchen’s THAT way. No, not that way, THAT way” body slams.[/li][li] Those are not dog treats in the litter box. Stop eating them. And don’t try to kiss me after eating them.[/ul][/li]Try not to drive me insane and I promise treats for all.

2

Totally awesome! A beautiful piece of writing that could only come from another pet owner!

3

My two little cat-shaped furballs just came at me at two directions, both pouncing on my stomach. The only time they work as a pack is when the food dish is empty. Funny how they can coorperate when they’re hungry, but will attack and fight the rest of the time. Kinda like furry raptors.

4

To my 40-pound springer spaniel:

My slumbering head is not a cushion on which to plop your butt at 5 a.m. Thank you.

5

That was the funniest thing I have read in a very long time. Especially the “No other creature in this house shits for accuracy”. Though I hope you do.

My 95lb dog’s nickname is “The Nutcracker”. It was really cute when she used to crawl between our legs when she was a pup. Now it just hurts…and threatens the possibility of human-children. Perhaps this is an evil plot…

6

that was so funny.

7

Of course you will please provide us with pics of your pets.

8

Excellent work hardygrrl

May I steal a litle of your thread to communicate with my cat?

Oi you, yeah you. I don’t care if my snoring does bother you, the correct response is to go sleep somewhere else, it is not to take various toys, dump them in your water bowl, drag them to my bed and try to drop them in my mouth. Stop laughing, it is not funny!

And may I remind you that your bill of sale specifically said you were shorthaired. retract all the fluffiness, I hate clipping your bum fluff to avoid dingleberrie/dags!

Thankyou.

9

Okay, I’ve heard of dingleberrie, but that are dags?

BTW, funny rant! HEEE!

10

hardygrrl, thanks for the laugh. It got me thinking that if we were dating someone who annoyed us as much as our pets, we’d drop kick 'em out the door.

Pet-lovers are my favorite people. No matter what we have to put up with from them, we know we still feel really lucky to have them to love.

11

Dags are what we antipodeans call dingleberries. Shit caught up in hair/fleece or a creature, usually a sheep, in this case a very fluffy and much loved brat of a cat who is currently chewing on my ankle.

I try to remember that not every body here speaks the same lingo so provided alternatives.

12

Dear Jardine’s Parrot,
after I spend 20 minutes giving you a nice shower and changing the paper in your cage and replacing your dry pellets and seed mix, do not RETAKE your shower by bathing in your very small water dish (with vinegar added) flapping and shaking around so that everything in that corner of the room gets soaked. I especially like how the nice colorful wooden toys we got, so safe for you (colored with food coloring) drip the water making lovely 60’s patterns on the linoleum.
Do not hold the end of a piece of spaghetti in one foot and grasp it firmly and pull it with your beak, straining the sauce off with your foot in a lovely shower of marinara.
Do not continue to cough and cough and cough oh-so-convincingly until I run off to read parrot health sites and learn that, no, parrots do not cough. However they DO imitate humans coughing for hoots.
And a special parrot rant. . .
Do not chew on the kitchen cabinets. Do not chew on the pine CD rack. Do not chew on the wrapped Christmas presents. Do not chew on the couch frame. Or the chairs. Do not chew on the video-tape paper cases. Do not chew on that book. Do not chew on THAT book, either. If you must chew on a book avoid the library books. Do not chew on the clock. DO NOT CHEW ON MY LAPTOP’S POWER CORD. Do not chew the veneer off my cheap crappy Ikea bookshelf, revealing that underneath it is not in fact oak but particleboard. Do not chase your father’s toes. Do not eat those tevas. Thank you.
Oh, and eat your vitamin A veggies, you little bastard.

A conure. I feel for you. Sometimes I think Murphy’s loud; then I go visit the conures and cockatoos at the Crazy Bird Lady’s sanctuary for unwanted birdies and let them holler with/ at different person for a while.

13

My conure will call the cat and dog like I do while aiming his green feathered ass at them. “*Foley…come here Foley… splat *” Then he chuckles to himself. If I didn’t have to clean the poo out of the cat’s/dog’s fur, I might find it amusing.

For those who don’t know, a conure is a minature parrot breed, usually about the size of a cockatiel. All the parrot attitude and intelligence, topped with a Napoleon complex.

14

You mean you actually don’t do everything their little hearts desire? (gasp) How dreadful!

15

hardygrrl: first off LOVED the rant…i haven’t laughed that hard in a LONG time…would have been more funny if it wasn’t so close to home.

I am the proud (and now very hard of hearing) owner of 2 conures (Nandays to be accurate…the LOUDEST of the conure line) and 2 quakers (wanna talk Napoleon complex have a quaker)
anyhow i relate to your letter to pets (my zoo is a whole other post…i could put a pet shop to shame)

My one conure Mandy coughs, sneezes then says Mandys sick.
she also loves to fling crackers across the room, she actually got one in the sink from a good 15 feet away once.

Mine don’t mind the vaccume but let one of those 8 legged freaks ™ in the room and they all go nuts. One day they were all screaming like they do when we have to restrain them to dr. them or clip there wings anyhow i went in the room and they are all screaming and looking at a daddy long leg spider like it was as big as king kong…

But you gotta love them…how else could we stand that much noise :smiley:

16

My baby is a siamese cat. She is beautiful, loving and intelligent.

ALL of my cats have been Siamese, or Balinese. (A Siamese breed.) [sub]I lost the two older ones a few years ago :frowning: [/sub]

But the thing IS, they (none of them) ever listened to a single, solitary thing I ever said. That is, I should say that they HEARD me, but nothing I said MATTERED to them. And they appear to have passed this on to my KobiiCat. (I used to breed Siamese cats, and Kobii is the last of the line.) There is, apparently, a hierarchy casaScotti…and none of them ever remembered to add ME to the list. I may LIVE here and provide the FOOD and the LAP and all…but I am otherwise incidental.

So…should you ever find a way to actually get your pets to LISTEN to you, and should you be able to pass this ON to me, I will be eternally grateful to you. You will become a member of my family. I will adore you and consider you a beloved member of my famly. To the point that I might put you in my WILL…such as it is. Okay?

My thanks!

17

I have conures too, so if I even go to the store for 20 minutes, upon my return I get to hear the greeting committee from Hell. My ringnecks parrots throw the food out of their trays, then glare and squawk at me because the trays are now empty. And my cockatiels act like they have solar powered batteries–as soon as the sun shines through the window in the morning they go from sleeping peacefully to shrieking, singing, whistling, and flapping. If they are out of their cages and I am sleeping past sunrise they take it upon themselves to alert me to the glorious new day by flying over to my bed and attempting to pull my eyebrows out.

In spite of this I’d never give them up.

18

If I may…

Simon: Stop eating like that. Just dip your head down into the dish, and take a bite. You do not need to scoop the canned stuff up in your claws to eat it. Look at the other three cats who eat in this house. See how they don’t scatter the moist food all over the bloody floor? (No, nevermind Oswald. I’ll get to him in a minute.) Also, if you put another hole in the damned waterbed mattress this week, I am not going to patch it again at 3AM. Instead, I am going to glue large vinyl patches onto your feet. If this does not stop the “mystery wet spots” I am going to hog tie you at bedtime, and release you only after I have had a dry 7 hours sleep. Without you trying to groom my armpits, to boot. And get your head out of that sneaker. I can smell it from over here. Do you want to asphyxiate yourself?

Oswald: Dumbass. Yes, you, sockhead. Leave the freaking dry food in the dish, okay? It’s not that hard, really. Stop scooping it all over the canned food. Now, dipshit. Hey, Mr. Food Critic, if you don’t like the canned stuff, don’t eat it. You do not need to cover it up, and the dry food isn’t cat litter, anyway, stupid. Hey, Oz? That’s the water you’re digging in, now. Notice how it all runs off of your foot, in a fairly liquid fashion? There is no cracker-jack prize in the dry food that needs to be dug out, and there are no fish that need to be rescued from the water dish, see?

Julia. Bite me again and I’m gonna punt you, ya little witch. I understand that you must have attention 24/7, but, trust me, biting me 6 seconds after I stop scratching your head is not gonna get you the attention you want, get it? And I swear, if you walk across the back of the couch, and spike me on top of the head one more time you’re gonna regret it. I’m the guy with opposable thumbs and access to the squirt bottle. Oh, that’s cute. Down in front, the humans can’t see the television, now. This is not endearing. It is annoying.

Ashley. There are several perfectly servicable litter boxes out in the other room. They are kept clean and tidy. In fact, they are neater than my own bathroom. Yes, there is dirty laundry in a pile next to the hamper. Yes, I fully intended on washing it tomorrow. There is absolutely zero need for you to pee on anything made of cloth that is left on the floor for more than 3 seconds. If the fact that the washing machine is running at this hour disturbs your sleep, good. It’s your own fault, ya crotchety old broad. And stop with the freakin’ hairballs, while we’re at it, okay? Only three rooms in this house are carpeted. Why do you feel the need to run to a carpet the instant you feel the urge to hork up a hairball? Your decorating services are not required, yeah?

All of you, collectively: Shut up. Yes, I see it. Would y’all stop making like steam vents, please? Yes, I see that it’s a cat. Shut your yaps, dummies. Yes, it’s out in the yard. Would you please shut the fuck up? Yes, I know that it doesn’t live in this house. SILENCE! Despite all these terrible crimes it has commited against civilization, I am not going to let all four of you out there to lynch the thing, or rend it limb from limb like some ambulatory catnip toy. If you don’t stop all the yowling and screeching and ramming your heads into the window glass, and puffing up like bottle brushes, I am going to turn the sink sprayer-hose on the lot of you. Dolts.
Thanks much, hardy. That felt good.

[sub]Yes, we do love our pets. Who else would put up with all this shit and yet continue to let them live in their house? I’m starting to think being a pet owner is a mental disability[/sub]

19

Heh…that is a radical idea, Skeezix.

You are a BAD MAN…and…I think you have a good point.

Do you think we could get…like…some kind of assistance?

You know, like…psychiatric help? Free?

Maybe a psychiatrist could explain to me why Kobii sometimes chooses to take her food out of the bowl…ONE BIT AT A TIME…(I am talking about the hard cat kibble here) and eat it. Sometimes she takes it out ONE BIT AT A TIME and then deciides she DOESN’T feel like eating THAT bit…thus causing great consternation when I get up at night to visit the bathroom and STEP ON SAID KIBBLE…really, if she ALWAYS did it, I would expect it and be more careful. But NO…she only does it occasionally. And not until I have relaxed and decided I didn’t have to WORRY about it anymore.

Go me. :rolleyes:

20

Ah, yes…my pets…

Titan: my leg is not a scratching post. Nor is it an item of furniture to be climbed. Stick your claws in my leg one more time and you will become airborne. And don’t think I can’t tell that you’re batting at my ankles while I’m asleep. Claw marks don’t just appear out of nowhere.

Blondie: I understand that you have a particular talent for finding the most inconvenient spot on my entire bed to lay on. But please, I need to get my comforter. Don’t throw a hissy fit on me and flounce off when I pull the blankets out from underneath you. And those daily battles with Titan? Terribly tiresome. The hissing and loud meows are annoying. Act like the dignified elder cat that you are. Smite the kitten with holy wrath or something.

Mugzie: you are an astonishingly irritating dog. It’s bad enough that one of the neighbors leaves notes in our mailbox threatening to shoot you (what have you been doing to the woman?), but then you leave droppings all about the house and steal unsupervised food items. Your undeniable cuteness won’t help for much longer, y’know.

I do love them all, but jeez…