Ha-ha! Haaaaaaaaaaaaaa! Thanks, Gazelle…these creatures are just the strangest mammals. Glad you got a laugh out of it!
I’ve had 2 rabbits and 5 guinea pigs in my life, and all 7 of them would eat the crap directly from their butts. This is a normal thing those kind of animals do to redigest their food, but it’s still an odd sight to see their heads going down there…and then they come up chewing…
One of my rabbits had cat-like tendencies and would climb up the bars of her cage and then jump out, which I’ve never seen a rabbit do. She also attacked this one stuffed toy rabbit all the time, pouncing, biting and chewing. She hated being touched and would growl and hiss (yup, a rabbit growling and hissing) as a warning before slicing whoever was petting her with her teeth…which was much more painful than a bite.
I have a cat with a speech impediment. Where most cats clearly say some variation of “Meow”, Cara says “giaooow” “magowww” and “grchow”. Cara also detests closed doors - it matters not which side of the door she is on, once it’s closed, she needs to be on the other side, and she will scratch endlessly until you arrange for her to be on the other side. She knows she is an indoor cat, though, so all exterior doors are safe from this behavior.
Tasha, a/k/a Queen Bitch Kitty, is entirely too dignified for silly behavior. However, she has learned that humans like to be petted almost as much as she does, so when you stop petting her, she extends a paw and pets you.
Tee, our rescued boy kitty, is the Clown Prince of all cats and we could devote an entire thread to his antics. He loves people and is convinced that all humans come to our house for the purpose of worshipping him. His most impressive trick to date is levitation - I have seen this cat jump from the floor to the top of the 8-foot tall bookcase with nary a bunching of his hindquarters.
Gracie the mastiff will eat damned near anything, except for mushrooms and strawberries. She is not allowed on the furniture, and she knows this, but she’s just big enough that if she backs up, she can casually sit her butt on the sofa. Occasionally she manages to slide back so that her back legs are sticking straight out in front of her - while her front legs stay on the floor.
The rats, Milo & Rodney, have discovered that if Tee jumps on top of their cage, they can get him to leave by throwing bits of their food out through the bars onto the floor. This has progressed to the point that every time Tee goes near the cage, a rat will poke food out as a peace offering.
My family has two dogs, Oreo (dalmatian) and Wojo (lab), both outdoor dogs. Oreo hates the cold with a passion–if it drops below 60 degrees, he expects us to tuck him in at night, or random times during the day, under at least 2 blankets. He was hit by a car about 3 years ago, resulting in his hip being replaced. He usually walks fine on all four legs, but if he’s just meeting someone for the first time, or feeling particularly neglected, he’ll limp on 3 legs and give us a “poor pitiful me” face.
Wojo, unlike Oreo, loves the cold. During the few times a year it’s snowed, he’ll sleep in the yard in the snow, sometimes even being covered with snow. Only when Oreo whines about being cold does Wojo sleep on their bed on the porch, and only to keep Oreo warm. Wojo also loves the water, being a lab, and will go swimming as often as he can, in whatever water source he can find.
I’m teaching my cat Emily to talk. She has quite an impressive vocal range. Her regular “meow” sounds more like “May” so I have decided that that is her middle name. She also says “mayo” a lot, but is actually afraid of mayonaise. She can also say “gang” but she give me a dirty look when I mimic it back to her, like I’m making fun of a speech impediment. Same with “gay.” She’s got “yeah” down pat; whenever I ask, “Emily, are you hungry?” she always answers “yeah!” Right now I trying to teach her to say “mango” just for fun, but so far she can only get the “mang.”
Mostly, though, we just go back and forth all day saying “mmmwww.” I do this subconsciously now. I can be typing, and very much engrossed in what I’m writing, but if she walks into the room and says “mmmwww” I’ll automatically respond “mmmwww” and never stop writing. I probably “mmmwww” back to her in my sleep, too.
My Siamanx Katie got punked by a mouse.
Maggie and Annie both know how to play tag and hide and seek.
Maggie [my Jenny Craig dropout] plays with the light from flashlights- it’s really the only time I ever see her be spry.
One of my cats gets up on the bar stools next to the counter and puts his paws on the counter and sits up, like a human. He’ll do this on his own and will sit there for a while, as if expecting to be served. Sometimes we’ll humor him and give him a little shot glass of milk, which he gladly drinks.
Another one of my cats once got a bit too involved in a dream. He was sleeping in the living room, and suddenly he shot up and bolted out the front door, which was fortunately open at the time, and continued down the lawn down to the street, where he stopped and looked around, realizing where he was. The thing is, from his position in the living room there was no way of knowing the front door was open.
Baby cat is afraid of spoons. Yep. Spoons.
As a kitten, she would help me eat ice cream. I’d hold out the spoon and she’d lick the ice cream off it. Now, I hold out ANY spoon, clean or not, and she’ll look at it and pull back, squinting her eyes.
Spoon = Ice Cream Headache
I’m such an evil kitty mommy!
Well, I wasn’t going to post to this thread because I could write an entire novel about the funny things my black and white, short-hair kitty, Marley, does. However, upon request by JoeK in this thread I will share one story.
Marley has the most personality of any cat I’ve ever met, for many reasons. One of her funnier habits includes harmonicas. My SO got one for Xmas a couple years back, along with a book and CD so he could learn to play it. He would sit himself on the couch, harmonica in hand, book on the coffee table and try to teach himself.
Marley rather enjoyed his playing. So much so that she would run over to him from wherever in the apartment she was, and start nuzzling up against him. The more he played, the more she nuzzled. She would make little chirping noises and often begin to actually climb up either his chest, his arm, or his back. She even perched herself on his shoulder once. Oh, and very often her little paws reach out to bat at the harmonica, as she purrs and chirps away in pleasure at the sound.
Needless to say, the SO wasn’t so thrilled with this, and still has yet to learn to play the harmonica.
Funny! Who woulda thunk our cats could have musical tastes?
Tasha once batted my daughter’s recorder off a table, then wrestled it around on the floor. At one point she inadvertantly breathed into the mouthpiece, and the recorder whistled. I’ve never seen a cat move so quickly.
My cat flushes the toilet.
My Pit Bull Genghis gets an itch on his hips. It’s on a spot he can’t reach, so to scratch it, he lies on his back on the carpet and “pedals” his back legs. That is, he rhythmically moves his hind feet like he’s pedalling a bicycle. He’ll do that for ten to thirty seconds, then take a deep breath and sigh, all while lying on his back. then he’ll resume peadlling for another 20 or so seconds. After that he’ll usually sneeze, roll over as quickly as possible, then get up.
My cat Michaelmouse used to like me to make him up in the bed. I’d start straightening the sheets and he’d jump on the bed and wait for me to cover him up. Then I would say loudly “There’s a big lump on the bed!” and pat it like I was trying to straighten it out. He loved that.
He used to visit my neighbor. My neighbor had a waterbed, and she told me he would chase ripples across the waterbed.
He also used to watch invisible things. He’d sit in the middle of the floor or up next to a wall and his eyes would track something that I couldn’t see. Sometimes he would move his head to follow whatever he thought he saw. We figured he was watching ghosts or something.
He was the best cat I ever knew.
Conan, the elder, and smarter, of my two cats, likes peas. He can’t seem to understand why my mother and I get so much amusement out of watching him eat them. Schrodinger thinks he’s weird.
Conan taught Schrodinger how to use the pet door by going halfway through and holding it open so Schrodinger could go through. After he did this a few times, Schrodinger finally grokked the concept and started using the pet door on his own.
If Schrodinger escapes from the apartment, or gets accidentally shut up in a room, Conan panics. He comes to me, “meow, meow, oh my God, meow”, then goes to the door that Schrodinger is on the other side of, then comes back and meows at me, repeating the process until the door is opened and Schrodinger is safely on the same side of it as Conan. If we have to take Schrodinger to the vet, Conan sits around and mopes until he comes home.
Schrodinger is the project supervisor. If we ever have maintainance or repair work done, Schrodinger positions himself about four feet from where the workmen are working, lays down and… watches very intently.
He also likes to drape himself on the balcony railing about the time I would be coming home from work (if I had a job) and wait, and meow at me as I approach the building.
If Schrodinger wants attention, he positions himself in a “traffic area” and meows at the first human who walks by, often rolling over on his back for a tummy rub.
When my mom is getting ready for work, he likes to lie in her bathroom sink and watch her.
We have a purebred ragdoll and an iron lamp. For some reason, the cat regularly gnaws on the flanges of the lamp. He will also run around the house at not quite twice maximum safe speed on occasion, and is quite frequently extremely vicious to anyone near by. Of course, this is all explained away by the fact that he’s a ragdoll, a breed specifically designed to lay around sleeping, be incredibly cute, and on occasion be friendly. Two out of three isn’t bad, I guess.
At one time I had indoor cats: Max, Mokey Bear, Tinker, Mike, Ike, and Look Alike, the latter three being kittens. We all slept together, so I was very warm, even in the deepest of Winter.
They would bring me gifts. One morning, as my eyes first opened, I became aware of a brown thing on my pillow, a few inches from my face. I leapt from the bed, backwards, upsetting my nestled brood.
Naked man sporting Don King hairdo stares at nasty thing on pillow. Nasty is dead cricket. well coated with cat spit. Kitties purr in concert, expecting reward for their gift. Gift is deposited in toilet, kitties are petted, and, congratulating myself that I’ve not suffered a heart attack, I go back to bed.
Pillow flipped over.
My oldest dog “Rainy” loves kittens (or grown cats). We found a kitten when Rainy was bout 2 years old. The kitten was old enough to eat on it’s own, but was still young. Rainy nursed the kitten…and then produced milk. Rainy is 9 years old and I have had many kittens/cats through out the years and she still cleans them and nibbles on them as if to de-flea them.
My mom had a toy poodle before I was even born. Prissy loved me from the day I came home (so my mom says). She would watch me in my crib and alert my mom if I moved.
As I got older Prissy would play hide and seek with me, she would climb on a plastic ball and roll around on it, she would tump over a clothes basket and act trapped. We had another poodle, he was blind. One day my mom and I heard a noise outside and went to see what it was, we came back in to see prissy on the dinning room table, knocking off food to our other dog.
I have a cat that sticks her whole paw in the water bowl and scoops watter out all over the floor, and licks her paw to “drink”
I love animals!
Dogs of the past:
Roscoe, a golden retriever I had years ago, was, like most dogs, afraid of thunderstorms. If inside, he’d jump into my clawfoot bathtub. If outside, he’d jump into my car if the window was open.
Grover, a wonderful newfoundland cross I had who never ever ever did anything wrong, would occasionally do a very strange thing if he thought I had been gone too long:
He’d gather my shoes. I’d come home and find him in the middle of my bed (a no-no), looking guilty, with every one of my shoes around him. He never chewed them; sometimes they were a bit slobbered on, but that’s all.
My younger sheltie, Strut, spins in circles when other dogs would bark. When he wants to go outside, he spins in front of the door. When he wants dinner, he spins in front of his dish. When he’s locked in the bathroom (for some reason, he always goes in there and manages to get the door shut behind him), he spins frantically. When he wants attention, he spins in front of me. And he always spins counter-clockwise.
He can also open doors if they push out (he can’t pull them towards himself–hence the getting locked in the bathroom thing).
Oh yes, he also climbs chain link fences. That little stinker can get out of just about anywhere–except the bathroom!
My older sheltie, Maddy, doesn’t do anything really odd. She just produces copious amounts of fur. Not such a funny thing by itself, but in the past year I have had:
- the refridgerator breakdown because some ventilation thing was clogged with fur,
- the air conditioner breakdown because it was clogged with fur (apparently the filters weren’t up to the task) and
- my harddrive die because the computer was full of fur.
Believe it or not, I do clean frequently and try to sweep up all the fur. But it comes off the darn dog just as fast as I can clean it up!
That reminds me. My housemate had an Abyssinian. Not the brightest cat. One Christmas, my housemate thought it would be cute to tie jingle bells to the tip of the cat’s tail.
The cat took a few steps – “jingle, jingle.” This terrified him. In a blind panic, he started to run for his life – “JINGLE, JINGLE, JINGLE, JINGLE!” The more frantic the running the louder the jingling and of course, no matter how fast he ran, the jingling was always right behind him. :eek:
Compounding the issue, was my housemate and his brother desperately trying to catch the cat before it passed out from fear. So not only was the Jingle Monster hot on his heels, but so were two humans that seemed hell bent on tackling him.