My parents’ dog really liked the taste of beer. Once when she was a puppy, she was trying to mooch of my dad when he was drinking a beer, so he gave her a sip. Ever since then, she’d come running whenever she heard someone open an aluminum can.
When she was a year or two old, Dad was out working in the yard, and Mom was going to bring him a can of beer. Being a fun and interesting person, she decided to run an experiment; she put a can of beer into a ziploc bag, showed it to the dog, and said “Bring this to Daddy.”
Now this dog, being the smartest animal ever to stand on four legs, understood perfectly. She ran out to where Dad was working, dropped the bag at his feet, and was shortly rewarded with a sip of beer.
(Please, no flames about animal cruelty; the dog never had more than a spoonful or so at a time.)
Of course I don’t fit in; I’m part of a better puzzle.
Buttons Marie (brown mut, 60 lbs) tried to eat my mother-in-law’s parrot. That in itself was funny, but I was holding the bird in my hand, so I had to kick her in the chest and yell “No, Buttons!” to avoid a major problem. The missing tail feathers weren’t nearly as funny to the rest of the family.
That obnoxios feathered freak learned to tease the dog by saying “Come here, Buttons.” She did because she was a good dog, and it squacked “No Buttons, no!” The bird actually laughed at her when she cowered in the corner, trying to figure out what she did wrong. I never did manage to explain to the poor girl why there was a talking meal in the house that she wasn’t allowed to eat.
Well, the last dog I had was a trip. Well, she was a trip until she got old and really really cranky.
Scarlett would, like someone else’s cat, play fetch with herself. She would stand at the top of the stairs and throw her ball down. She’d chase it madly down the stairs, run back up, and do it all over again.
One time, when we had left for the evening, she managed to get up on the kitchen table and into the candy bowl. It was full of all different types of candy mixed together but she picked out every single mini Reese’s peanut butter cup in the whole bowl. She unwrapped them perfectly (the wrappers were not shredded at all!) and ate them. Somehow, she didn’t get sick either. After that, we made sure that the candy bowl was on the bar when we left. Occassionally, when we’d come home, she’d be on top of the table walking around since she was able to get up on the table but unable to get down.
Okay, keep in mind that I am sharing this information with you in the interest of scientific advancement, okay? My ex-wife owned a black cat named Domino (because of a white spot on his chest). I got along fine with the little guy and he seemed to like me as much as a cat can allow. Anyway, Domino and I began doing experiments to determine feline behavior. We found that when a largish rubber band was place around his body just behind his front legs he would walk sideways to the right and when the rubber band was place just forward of his hind legs, he would walk sideways to the left. Domino and I also determined that if a rubber band was used to affix his tail to one of his hind legs, he would be immobilized. He would turn into a little cat statue! The most interesting effect we found was that Domino would turn into an aerobics exercise expert when squares of masking tape were attached to all four paws. Man, that cat was some kind of pioneer of feline scientific theory. Our last endeavor of exploration involved a gunney sack and the Mississippi River, but that’s a whole 'nother story.
Just kidding, the real story is that on a car trip thru Florida, we stopped to get some gasoline and the poor guy (who had been cooped up in the car for several days) took off and we never saw him again. Turns out there was a creamery right next to the gas station and since it was night time, there was no way I could ever have found him among millions of cats. I am sure he was in cat paradise.
Well my cat, RIP, was outstanding. One of the most entertaining, while not unusual, was to watch TV. She loved nature shows and occasionally regular TV would perk her interest. Theres nothing funnier that watching a cat stalk a bird on TV and then see it fly off and begin charging the screen. She’d lay on the warm spot on top of the TV and she’d hear a bird. Then she’d start looking around behind the TV to see where that damn bird was. She would ocasionally be sleping up there and fall off while still asleep, talk about a confused cat.
Another of her favorite things was to crawl under the covers with me at night. In the winter she’d climb up and snake under the covers and curl up in the back of your bent knees. She’s a little space heater.
This is a location experience (you had to be there) with a neat alley cat that I’m sorry to say fell to feluk. I fed the alley cats back then. And “Squeeky” felt he should return that favor.
One morning I’m putting the cat food on the back step and hear a squawk. Another squawk.
W-a-y down the corner Squeeky is walking very steadily toward me and in his mouth is…the wing of a very alive and very angry Grackle. The Grackle is hopping alongside the young cat (staying connected with his wing) and protesting with every hop. The bird was bigger than the kitten.
Finally Squeek stopped right at the back step,opened his mouth and presented the angry bird as a gift. The Grackle realized he was free and flew off.
The little alley cat looked so hurt. And I know you’re not supposed to laugh.
On cold nights, one of my cats likes to get under the covers and “nurse” on my neck - pushes her face into my neck, kneads heavily, and purrs loudly. Then she’ll fall asleep nestled next to me.
“With enough courage, you can do without a reputation.” - Rhett Butler
Mister_Rogers writes:
{He once put a long deep scar in the neighbors’ dog’s nose. He was a fighter.}
My cat, Satchel, was a fighter too.
About three times a week this lady would walk her white German Sheppard mix around the block. My cat would then wait under the car in our driveway and pounce on the dog all the time (then run away).
Satchel was the King of the Neighborhood. He would always win every fight. His name was Satchel but we would call him ‘Sabre-Toothed Kitty’.
Then he became a house-cat and a hairy lump on the top of the fridge. I’ll never forget him.
Confusious Say:
-Man who stand on toilet,
Is high on pot-
Back when I was 10 or so (and please not jokes about how that was back in 1998, 1997, etc. Thanks.) we had a dog (springer spaniel named Derby) and a cat (named Jenny).
Well, one night we were watching the TV. The dog was sound asleep on the floor. The cat was sitting next to me on the couch. Suddently Jenny starts twitching like cats do when they are about to attack something. She leaps from the couch and lands on Derby’s head. She claws repeatedly at his head while the dog jumps up. When Derby gets up Jenny takes off. Derby gives chase. They run out of the living room into the hall, into the kitchen, into the dining room back into the living room, back into the hall, etc a few times. Derby finally catches Jenny and puts her head in his mouth and starts shaking her. He does this a couple of times, spits her out and lies back down. Jenny sits down next to Derby and start cleaning herself.
A slight briefer story about Jenny and Derby. They used to fight over each other’s food. When we put down the cat food and dog food Derby would run over to the cat food and start eating. Jenny would run to the dog food. When Derby noticed he would run over to the dog food. Jenny would run to the cat food. When Derby noticed he would run over to the cat food. Etc until the food was all gone.
Our oldest cat, Marble (she’s 7 years old) has her own little “baby.” When she was young, we had to leave her home alone all the time, so we left a radio playing to keep her company and left her a lot of toys. One of the toys was a little stuffed kitten (one of the “Pound Purries,” if you remember them).
She always treated it like a real cat. To this day, she picks it up by the neck and carries it around, meowing as loudly as she can. She’ll clean it like a real cat, also. If you pick it up and toss it, she immediately runs to see if it’s OK, then turns around and meows at you. Funny stuff.
My parents got this dog named Bandit, a Shetland Sheepdog, who is the most beautiful dog I’ve ever seen.
He is fantastic with small children but a little skittish with strange adults.
Soon after we got him we discovered his ‘singing’ talent. He gets very excited when he hears any of the following words: “Do you want to call the kids?”
But ESPECIALLY excited when he hears that exact question. He immediately runs to the highest point available, usually someone’s head or shoulders, and begins howling at the top of his lungs. We’ve discovered that if we sing with him, he can match our pitch. It’s loud and annoying but soooo funny and cute!
We have two cats: Sardine (or Big Kitty), a furry, soft neutered male, and Annie (or Creepy), a short hair tortise-shell fixed female.
When I first found Annie (found her as a stray at our office building), she was so small she could fit in my husband’s shaving kit and liked to lay in there.
Big Kitty has very long canines that hang out of his lip a little so we call him Fang. His whiskers are so long that my husband used to tell him “you’ve got a spider on your face, Mr. Kitty”. I just call him Fu Manchu.
We tied a small bag of macaroni noodles to a fishing pole and drag it around and throw it up in the air and Mr. Kitty chases it and jumps after it. His jumps are almost as tall as I am plus he turns all these backflips and stuff too.
I can talk with Annie. If she’s laying on the couch or floor, I’ll get her attention and say,“whatcha doing?” and she’ll chatter at me. She’s very intelligent.
Both cats like to worm their way under the covers at night and sleep next to me (my husband rolls on them so they’ve learned to stay away from him!). They usually do it one a time. It’s rare to have dual worms.
Annie will also put her food in the water and then eat it.
My husband taught Annie how to ride on his shoulder and now, whenever you’re near something high up that she wants, she’ll jump up on you to get to your shoulder.
My husband scratches Annie under her belly while she’s walking and she then walks like an armadillo walks.
I love this topic! We don’t have kids, just two dogs and two cats that are like are children and we love to talk about them with other animal lovers.
My oldest cat Ophelia (9 years) had kittens on my birthday one year at almost the exact time that I was born which happens to be New Years Day. She is a “talker” and cries when she thinks we’re not home. As soon as she hears your voice she’ll come running.
My other cat Thaddius is a big fat black cat with the tiniest squeakiest voice. He thinks he’s a dog and hangs out with my dogs. He even cleans their ears and faces, it’s so cute because my dogs are so much bigger.
My oldest dog, Watson is a lab/border collie mix and he’s SO smart. He will fetch any thing. We have a huge yard and hit golf balls for fun. Watson will bring them all back and can fit about 4 at a time in his mouth.
My youngest is a St Bernard named Stella. She is 150 pounds of love. She is very affectionate and loves all people. If you sit on the floor she will try and sit in your lap. She’s so big that she can back up to a couch or chair and set her but on it like a human, it looks so funny. She also has a thing for Beer or any other alcoholic beverage. You cannot set your glass down where she can reach (which is hard since she can even reach things on the kitchen counter) or she will down the whole drink in one slobbery slurp!
My dog, Murphy ( 80 # yellow lab) and my husband ( 250 barrel chested boy) were wrestling on the living room floor once and Murphy’s paw landed perfectly on my husbands diaphram, making him burp involuntarily and very loudly. The dog, non plussed by this, stood on his chest and sniffed his breath.
We peed our pants laughing over this.
Other than that, her only talent is to stare at you until her brain waves tell you what she wants and to do it.
Our older cat, Maria, loves peanut butter. She’s not in the habit of begging for food (in fact, she’s extremely well-behaved in that respect) but one day we were working on a box of peanut butter/chocolate candies, and she jumped onto my lap and tried to take one out of my hand.
Ever since, if either of us is having peanut butter, we give her a little taste.
She was an adult stray when we got her, so I have no idea where she acquired a taste for peanut butter.
One of our current cats, Spy, will attempt to get into any box no matter how small. When he was a kitten he used to love being in boxes, and could fit in almost any box. He is, of course, much bigger now and we think he is doing the human equivalent of trying to fit into the jeans you owned four years ago. I can just imagine his little brain thinking … “I am not that big … I can still fit in that shoe box”.
We sometimes call Spy the Devil Cat. He runs around the house meowing for no apparent reason. He will then try to climb the walls. He will jump onto their scratching post, the couch and desperately try to get to the ceiling. Although our other two cats hate it when I tried to do this to them (I only tried because Spy loved it and I wondered if they would) Spy loves it when I hold him upside down so he can walk on the ceiling.
When Spy was a few months old he came into the shower when it was on (he didn’t realize how much water was in there). For a few seconds he just sat at the back quite peacefully. Then he started to flip out (must have noticed all the water). Fearing that I was going to get my leg clawed off I reached over to open the curtain but Spy had grabbed a hold of it and all I succeeded in doing was pulling him closer to the water which made him freak out even more. I didn’t want him to get wet so I tried reaching down to free his claws so he could get out. Silly me. I forgot that I was the only thing blocking the water from the shower head from hitting him. You can imagine what happened when I bent over. Poor Spy. Sometimes I wonder if he stills hold that against me when he attacks my shoe laces.
We had a hound dog that would catch bullfrogs at our pond. He would stalk around the water’s edge, and when the bullfrog jumped in–he would jump in after it, sticking his head UNDER the water, coming out with the frog. I don’t know why, all he did was take them out and drop them on the ground, no worse for the wear.
My fat black cat (see my earlier post) also has a thing for boxes. Whenever you play a game that has a box, like Trivial Pursuit he will try and fit in the empty box. Needless to say, ALL of my game boxes have busted out sides that are all duct taped!
CatInHat,
My female cat will actually bat food out of my hand as I’m bringing it to my mouth and then go and eat it.
Looks like it’s time for some Quincy stories. Quincy was a Yorkie-Poo (Yorkshire terrier and poodle), and was one of the most neurotic little dogs I ever met. Quincy would have the run of any town we lived in, always coming home when he was done rambling.
What’d he look like?
One day my stepsister was out riding with her high school friends. “Jesus Christ!” one of them yelled. “Look over there! Is that a rat?”
“No, that’s Quincy! QUINCY! GO HOME!” and he scurried back home.
Quincy hated all of our other pets. One day my mom was out raking leaves with Jack, a big dumb stray dog we had adopted. (Jack stayed just long enough to eat about $200 worth of dog food, gain 80 pounds, then move on). My lil’ sis peeked her head out of her bedroom window (2nd floor) to wave to mom. Quincy thought he’d peek out, too. Then he spotted him . . . JACK! “Ooh!” thought Quincy. “I hate that dog!” In a blind fury, Quincy lunged for Jack . . forgetting that he was on the second floor of a house. In what seemed like slow motion, Quincy slid down the slanted roof, scritching with his little paws to try and gain some traction to stop. He hung from the eaves for a moment . . .then fell, bouncing off the hood of our Suburban parked underneath . . then bouncing to the ground.
He was fine. Jack didn’t even know anything happened.
I remembered a few more stories about my dog, Scarlett…
She would always sing with pianos. Nothing else made her sing except pianos. She’d sing if we played our piano or if I put Chopin on the stereo.
She once farted and scared herself half to death. We were standing there looking at her and she passes gas and then she wheels around really fast the same way she would do if we sneaked up behind her and poked her on the hind-quarters to play with her/scare her. Anyway, she was looking all over the place to see what had happened behind her. That was pretty darn funny. It was also the only time we ever heard her pass gas.
Scarlett also loved to unwrap presents. At Christmas, we’d try to unwrap our presents but Scarlett would jump right in there. After awhile, we’d just give them all to her and let her do it.
A Pekingese we had when I was younger used to go nuts every time there was a horse on TV. No other animals fazed her…only horses.
