Our unusually mellow cocker spaniel, Sandie, will lay totally flat with her hind legs pointing straight back and will pull herself around using her front legs only (we call it her “army crawl”). If you tap your toe directly in front of her you can direct her around the room.
My dog watches TV too. She dislikes any animals and any animated characters. She lunges at the screen and barks frantically when they are on. People on TV she ignores. She really hates the gecko on those insurance commercials. She has gotten so she recoginzes the sound of the commerical and will run into the living room from another room if she hears one of the commericals she dislikes. The Pillsbury doughboy is another one she hates.
That brings to mind a cat a roommate of mine had once. He’d come CHARGING into the living room whenever anyone booted up the Nintendo. The “Super Mario Brothers” music would bring him running.
He would then leap up onto the TV set and hover over the top of it, waiting… waiting… and when Super Mario did the thing at the end, where he had to jump over a pyramid of bricks and touch a flagpole, at the end of each level, he would do his DAMNDEST to KILL SUPER MARIO, frantically batting at the screen, sometimes with both front paws. Occasionally, he’d overbalance and go tumbling ass over teakettle off the TV set…
One of our former cats was playing in a paper shopping bag and got his head stuck in the handle. He started trying to run, but since he was still inside the bag he couldn’t get any traction and just kept thrashing around. Before I could get to him he managed to tear the bag apart, but his head was still stuck in the handle so now he was running around the room with the remains of the bag flapping around him like a cape. It took about fifteen minutes for him to calm down enough that I could catch him and free him.
BTW Eve, I presume your cats are named after the Gish sisters.
There was a very special cat I had once.
His name was Faust; my roommates at the time nicknamed him Professor Doktor Faustus because he learned how to open interior doors by jumping up and grabbing the handle with his front paws, twisting it, and kicking the doorjamb with his hind legs until the door swung open. If the door swung inward, it usually took him a little longer.
Once a week or so, he’d wear himself out trying to open the front door, which was too heavy for him to move.
Anyway, he was a chow hound extraordinaire – if he had you pegged for a sucker, you couldn’t eat around him until he’d inspected the meal and received his tribute. Part of that was my fault – he and I had an agreement that if he’d keep his distance while I ate, I’d save him a nibble at the end. For some reason, though, Faust had no respect whatso-ever for one of my roommates at the time, a guy named Max.
One day, I decided to make tuna salad. I diced up some celery first, and while opening the cans, Faust of course raised hell about wanting what was in them, and I drained the water and let him have it, and he raised hell about wanting the REST of what was in the cans, and I ignored him and he swatted my leg, and I ignored him and he bit my ankle and I ignored him… and then I heard the crunching sounds behind me…
I turned around. He had leaped up on the other counter, and was eating the celery. Apparently, he meant to have SOME of what I was doing, whether I liked it or not…
Max came home from work later and asked if there was anything to eat. I told him there was tuna salad. He went and fixed a sandwich and sat down on the couch to watch the news with me. Faust promptly hopped up on the coffee table and yauped for his share. Max ignored him. Faust looked irritated, and leaned over the edge of the table, reaching out a paw to hook the sandwich and bring it closer for inspection. Max moved the sandwich where Faust couldn’t reach it, and bipped him gently on the nose with a finger by way of chastisement.
This was the fatal error; you could swat Faust or yell at him, but to PATRONIZE him was a GRAVE mistake.
Faust responded by suddenly leaning way forward, winding up with one paw, and firmly clouting the sandwich out of Max’s hand.
Max squawked.
I goggled.
The sandwich arced gracefully through the air.
Faust cocked his head, calculated the feast’s flight path, sprang off the coffee table, and positioned himself about where the sandwich would land on the floor, all in about three-quarters of a second.
I goggled.
Max recovered, leaped to his feet, hurdled the coffee table with a mighty bound, and fielded the sandwich out of the air about a foot above Faust’s waiting hungry paws.
They looked at each other like that for a minute – Max’s face filled with unbelieving outrage, Faust’s face creased with mild irritation.
Max roared.
Faust bolted.
I goggled.
Max launched himself after the cat, squishing the sandwich in a deathgrip, waving it around as if he meant to bludgeon the cat to death with it.
I sprained a latissimus, laughing.
A couple of days later, Max was sitting in front of the TV, trying to eat rice and beans out of a tupperware container. Faust promptly leaped up on the arm of the chair and, whenever a forkful of rice and beans left the container, Faust slapped it off the fork.
And then looked at Max, as if to say, “Watcha gonna do about it, y’damn pansy?”
Spooner does that too - - she recognizes the shutdown sounds of the computer & gets up, ready to go to bed or whatever.
Also - she’ll either crawl under the computer desk (crowding one’s feet) or lay right behind the wheeled office chairs - we’ve learned to watch for her or say “Excuse me, Spooner” to make sure she doesn’t get run over.
Sometimes I catch my dog Rory sitting in a chair like a human, with her back to the back of the chair and her legs out in front of her. The best is when she has an arm on the armrest. She also is quite content to sit with her hind legs on the couch, and her front legs standing on the ground. The couch is the right height so that she ends up about even.
She often sleeps on her back, with her legs sticking up in the air, sometimes straight up. She does not nap this way, I have only seen her do it in a deep sleep at night.
She enjoys a new trick for her, we call “guess which hand.” I show her a small treat or toy, then put it in my closed fist behind my back. I present my hands to her, and tell her “guess which hand.” She will look from one to the other, then place her paw on the hand she thinks contains the treat. If she is right, she gets the treat, if she is wrong, it goes behind my back again for another round.
She also enjoys playing hide and seek.
Alright, the subject’s been broached, we can talk birds now. (and I’m terrybly sorry for your loss, losing Iian would KILL me)
We’re watching the Olymics, cheering on the ice skaters, when we hear from my office (where Iian, our African Grey resides)
WOOOOO!!! {click}{click}{click}
Which is his best attempt to cheer with the crowd. About something he knows nothing about. But you know, that making noise thing is the bestest thing to do.
He’s slipped off my knee, flopped awkwardly to the floor (he’s trimmed, and never learned to fly very well), where he’ll comment ‘Whoops.’
Unfortunately, he also swears. It’ bad enough, but he also has the context down. He’ll take a ball over to the side of his cage, hold it straight out, drop it (making as much of a racket as possible), look at it with one eye and yell “DAMMIT!”
We installed a doggy door a few months ago - what a mistake :smack: Now the dogs can carry anything out of the house that they want to keep as their own! Their favorite is assorted clothing … but they went too far this past weekend when they took both pair of my slippers and my favorite tennis shoes! Luckily they don’t chew on them, they just take them into “their” territory - the back yard.
We also have cats but no litter box. Our cats let us know they want outside by swatting a giant jingle bell on ribbon I have hanging from the doornob 
Many moons ago, one daughters favorite cat had been missing for weeks. Daughter had her tonsils removed and the cat reappeared, staying by daughters side the entire time she recuperated. After our daughter recovered, the kitty left, never to be seen again.
Yet another kitty insisted on having us rub her tummy while she was in labor 
a few days ago i tried out the curious new inventions of wrigleys - or whatever company is responsible - on my feline friend…
the ‘thin ice’ for those of you who remain confounded…well needless to say he didnt think much of it and insisted on drooling to an endless extent all over the kitchen and dining room floor, aparently trying to get away from the taste, whilst failing miserably.
more concerning is the fact that matt tells of similar circumastances this morning in art in which his dog encountered the breath-freshening goodness…
I have a big (read: morbidly overweight) white and orange tabby “mutt” (whatever the word is for a cat mix) kitty, and a small, female, tortisshell cat.
They ocassionally will have kitty makeout/grooming sessions, which Buttercup (the female) will often try to end abruptly by walking away. Often, Cutie (the male) will have nothing to do with that, so he follows her and pounces, using his mass to hold her down. She’ll squirm, but all you can see is her tail and back legs, and upper head/torso region, the rest is under Cutie’s folds! He lives up to his name :D.
My conure likes to climb up the side of the cage and flip the lightswitch. It’s like he’s having a rave.
I really shouldn’t encourage him by giving a beat/singing techno style, but he keeps up with me. 
Okay, well this isn’t MY pet… (yet…) but…
When I first met lno’s, Spanky (a border collie / sheltie cross), I came to the conclusion that the dog was, undeniably, completely, happily gay. (not that there’s anything wrong with that!)
Here’s proof:
a) Spanky sleeps in the closet. IN THE CLOSET
b) His name is SPANKY, for crying out loud. Doesn’t anyone remember Sparky, the gay dog, from South Park? The one of Big Gay Al’s Big Gay Animal Boatride fame?
c) When he sits, he always puts up one paw.
d) He’s got a fascination with interior design
e) He’s positively fabulous
f) When lno has him babysat, he’s babysat by his “weekend daddy”, who is probably the gayest straight man I know.
g) He lets men (accidentally) scratch his tummy near his… erm… bits and thinks it’s great.
h) He is obviously madly in love with my dog, Valen (who is a womaniser)
i) He pawsitively (gag) likes being groomed, and having his nails clipped…
j) He has a soft spot for rainbow-striped bandanas
k) If he could speak, he’d be saying “da’hling” lots when talking to people.
lno insists Spanky is not gay… but we all know how that goes. Denial, denial, denial… then, eventually, acceptance. lno, dearest, the dog is gay. Not bi-curious. Gay.
And that’s fabulous!
We’ve been over this.
He is just going through a phase. As soon as he meets the right woman, he’ll settle down.
Look… sometimes… sometimes little boy dogs don’t like little girl dogs. They like other little boy dogs.
And that’s okay.
Accept Spanky for who he is. It’s HIS lifestyle. His choice. And he knows I support him 100%. Someday, he may even introduce you to Brutus, that big brute he likes so much!
(I’ve said too much already. Sorry, Spanky.)
Two things I can think of:
-
My mom’s cat Cassandra had 3 kittens. One afternoon, she cried and cried and kept running from us to the where the kittens were sleeping. My mom and I picked up the fuzzy bundles and took them to the living room with us. Cassandra quit crying and took a nap, she just wanted a babysitter so she could get some rest!
-
My cat Dick LOVES the laser pointer. Recently, I’ve been keeping it by the PC so I can shine it on the blank wall nearby for him to chase. He loves this game so much he now sits piteously by the wall, waiting for the laser pointer. Sometimes, he’ll jump at the wall when I haven’t even turned it on. This is so cute that of course I get the pointer out to play with him. He has me trained.
My cat Bunny likes to help me make the bed. Whenever she knows I’m doing it, she’ll jump up on the bed and scratch at all the wrinkles as if she’s straightening them. Generally once the bottom sheet is down, she likes me to make the remainder of the bed on top of her and will stay there to nap.
She also has KNOWS…when I get cheese out of the refrigerator, more specifically, she knows when I get wrapped cheese slices out of the fridge and could be in a dead sleep, but would hear it and come running, meowing all the way. It’s too funny.
My cat Oscar likes to play “I’m gonna get you!” I can just say the words to him, and he’ll take off like a bat in hell down the hallway, flinging himself off of walls.
He also likes to wake me up in the morning by batting my nose with his paw. If I don’t get up in time, he uses claws. And when I go in the bathroom, he immediately jumps in the bathtub and waits for me to turn the faucet on a tiny, trickling stream so he can catch the water.
My female cat Emmy doesn’t have many special talents. She recently learned that the correct response to “Shut the f*** up!” in the mornings is not to jump on Mommy’s chest and cry right in her face. We’re very proud of her.
Ava
Ditto!
Oh God, Siesmi… I’m dyin’ over here! Tears rolling down my face. What a hilarious picture you put in my mind!
I’d love to see this. Cats can get the most disgusted looks on their faces…
One of our cats has an absolutely adorable pink nose. Every now and then, I’ll touch it, saying “Beepie on the kitty nose!” He will look shocked, horrified, and disgusted when I do this.
Our cats like to play peekaboo around the freestanding wall. Actually, what they’re REALLY doing is trying to catch the other cat off guard, so as to Pounce on the other.
One of our cats, Sapphire the Siamese, knows the names of several of the house rooms. She’ll wake up, yawn, look around for me…and if I’m not in the same room, she starts hollering. My husband will tell her, “She’s in the kitchen” or “She’s in her room” and Sapphire heads off to the correct room. She’s a clever girl. If she sees me take out an insulin needle, she lets me know that she’s ready to eat, too.