How do your pets "reward" you?

In My Humble Opinion (IMHO)
#1

Zen, my wolf hybrid repays his upkeep in the finest of ways. His overall excellent behavior, lack of excessive barking, gentle demeanor, total absence of inappropriate indoor voiding and compliance with sometimes embarrassing commands (i.e., treat balanced on the nose), make him a paragon of canine virtue.

I love him to little tiny bits and tell him so numerous times each day.

So, where’s the grouse? Which fly is in what ointment, you ask?

My cat. Whoa! Now there’s a complete shocker. Yup, it’s the cat. Piewacket, my adopted feral kitty, thinks there is nothing better than rushing into the house, scarfing down a healthy dose of his Friskies and then trotting back towards where I sit to immediately lavish upon me one of his most fragrant and fetid farts. He has done this with such impeccable regularity that I am halfway (nay, entirely) tempted to jam a cork into his butt upon his entrance into my domiciliary abode.

How do your pets “reward” you?

#2

Sheba the 10-yr old Siamese rewards me by keeping my neck warm (she sleeps on the back of the sofa as I work) - but she’s a portly cat, and I keep having to push her ass back up off me.

Siam, our little Siamese, rewards me by bestowing his attention on my underwear - that is, the ones with feathers on them. He has singlehandlely destroyed every Victoria’s Secret feathery bit of lingerie I own.

And then there’s Cherokee. In addition to occompanying Siam on the lingerie massacres, he likes to leave bits of black fur all about the house and jump on the dining room table.

If they weren’t so damn cute I wouldn’t stand for it - I took them all off the streets of Dallas and couldn’t imagine being without the little creatures.

#3

We’ve got a beat-up raggedy tuxedo cat name of Oswald, who rewards us for the pre-killed food and the use of the waterbed by visiting upon our skulls his patented vibro-massage therapy.

Basically, he lays across the top of your head, while you try to sleep, and purrs at a decible level just shy of a Lear jet’s engines; this can result in loose fillings, displaced cervical vertebrae, and seriously wicked “pillow hair.” Plus there’s the lost sleep you get from constantly snapping awake, thinking, “There’s an 8.5 earthquake whose epicenter is my freakin’ pillow!”

Our crotchety old Siamese rewards our years of service, vet bills and cat food by ensuring the speed of our hand-eye coordination. She does this stealing anything edible in the entire house that goes more than 2 seconds unobserved by human eyes. If you make a sandwich for lunch, sit down at the table and realize, “Hey, some 'tater chips’d go good with this here repast,” you’d best sprint on the way to, and back from, the pantry, or you’ll find said sandwich on the floor, being messily disemboweled* and devoured.

*[sub]She goes for the meaty inside bits o’ the thing first, y’see.[/sub]

Julia, the pathetic little shelter cat we rescued rewards our attention by tolerating approximately 7.3 seconds of physical contact at a stretch. Any longer than that in one sitting, and she’ll turn and bite the hand that scratches, to abuse a phrase.

And then, there’s Simon. He’s the only cat in our house with a genuine reason to distrust, resent, or outright hate our treatment of him. Y’see, he’s the one that had the urinary blockage problems, and, after one too many, ended up with a large section of his urethra surgically removed. So, while the rest have had to deal with ‘normal’ vet visits, he’s had three midnight runs to the emergency clinic for catheterization, and a three day stint at the regular vet’s place for shaving, anasthesia, penile shortening surgery and recovery.

And how does this truly maligned soul repay us for this evil?

He gets in bed with us every night, and attempts to groom the hair in my armpits. I swear he’s a masochist.

#4

Mocha (elderly burmese cat) rewarded me by needing no medical care apart from routine desexing/vaccinating/dental prophylaxis throughout her first 7 years of life, waiting until she turned 8 (and I was more than half-way through a veterinary degree) to experience food allergies, arthritis, and being attacked by wild animals. A reward for me, as I get to practice my skills on her. A reward for her, because I can mostly treat her myself (with low-cost visits to my lecturers as a backup when required), allowing her to still be alive despite my sometimes precarious student finances.

#5

Mocha (elderly burmese cat) rewarded me by needing no medical care apart from routine desexing/vaccinating/dental prophylaxis throughout her first 7 years of life, waiting until she turned 8 (and I was more than half-way through a veterinary degree) to experience food allergies, arthritis, and being attacked by wild animals. A reward for me, as I get to practice my skills on her. A reward for her, because I can mostly treat her myself (with low-cost visits to my lecturers as a backup when required), allowing her to still be alive and well cared for with chronic diseases despite my sometimes precarious student finances.

#6

Wow Skeezix, I’ve had cats named Simon and Julia too.

My cat now, Brat, has actually gotten quite tame. Her mother ran away when she was 4 weeks so she wasn’t weened properly. She used to be really mean, but now is quite affectionate. At least to the members of our house.

The stupid beagle on the other hand. This dog will go after any food anywhere. I once watched as she tried to get up on the kitchen table after something on there, she ended up knocking over the chair she was trying to get on.

Once, I had put down a piece of steak that my stepson hadn’t touched with the intetion of putting it in the fridge, I turned to scrape the plate in the sink, turned back to grab the steak. That damned beagle had eaten it.

She once burned herself on the stove trying to get food that was cooking. She hasn’t tried that again.

#7

Susie (whose body I am trying to type around as we speak), will sometimes (mostly in Winter) grant me an “audience” with her as we lie in bed.

She does this by either crawling on top of my chest and “kneading biscuits” or by actually getting under the covers and allowing me to “snuggle up” with her. Neither of those two incidents last more than a couple of minutes, so I know to value them. Fickle female! :wink:

The other thing she does (and I believe I may have mentioned this before) is she comes into the bathroom while I am “ker-plunking the Ge-schtinkens”, and lets me pick her up and give her a hug. No other female in my life has ever thought that much of me.

I am truly blessed.

:wink:

Q

#8

Zennie, sorry, but I may have taken your use of the word reward too literally.

Susie has never farted so that I would notice, and since she’s an “inside kitty”, about the only thing she does that is even remotely annoying is “exercising” while I’m trying to sleep in the daytime. Imagine hearing “hoofbeats” approaching, then silence, _____________ then plunk on the bed, silence _______ and then more “hoofbeats” fading away. Now I’m awake.

Phase Two

I close the bedroom door, and she starts meowing to the world what an unfeeling, callous bastard I am, so now I’m good and awake.

Phase Three

The paw under the bedroom door where it doesn’t meet the carpet: First sliding to one side, then the other. She has me mesmerized…

Phase Four

I sigh and get up and open the damn door and let her in. I am, after all, a very well-trained human. :smiley:
Q

#9

When I was a teen I had a horse called Vodka, she used to greet the sight of me and my grooming kit/tack by coughing like she was going to bring up a lung (if your horse is coughing it’s not a good idea to ride it), if I was just me and a pack of Polos [like Lifesavers in the US] she’d be fine, not a bother on her, but as soon as I showed her a bridle she start hacking away like a 90-a-day’er. Cost me a fortune in vet’s bills - only to be told there was nothing wrong with her … she also used to delight in standing with her arse to the door of the stable, and when I’d open the door, she’d fart right in my face, any time I was doing anything near her backside she’d fart, and on several occassions when I was bent over picking out (cleaning) her back feet, she started to shit …

#10

Viralata, domestic short-hair goddess, rewards anyone careless enough to leave milk unattended with streaks of cat barf from the loft to the bedroom. It’s an amazing feat, really, and one that should have a place in the Olympics. Barfing whilst on the lope: try it and see how successful you are at it.

However, she does come to greet us when we come home, with many vocalizations and affectionate behavior. I’m gonna miss that when the time comes for her to go mousing in cat paradise.

#11

My dog pees on people that I don’t like.

#12

Last summer, one of my neighbours dumped 2 wee puppies close to my driveway for me to find…a year later, and each of them weighs more than I do…

They have mangled my garden, pull up shrubberies to play with as toys, and in their exuberance to greet me when I dare to go outside, will knocked me down (literally) unless I fight my way through them…

BUT – I have a few sheep, a small flock to provide wool for my spinning and weaving. These sheep are pets, and all are very, very sweet and tame…except one. I call him Demon Baby.

:eek:

He hates everyone. Utterly everyone. If I have to trim hoofs or perform any sheep maintainence, such as jabs for worms, I simply get some corn and carry the bucket into the barn. All the other sheep trot in, chow down, and I can close the gate behind them…

Not so with this suspicious, evil sheep. He knows. He watches me. He will stand outside the barn and watch me, knowing that when I walk away casually, I’m just waiting for him to go back inside. I’ve had to sneak around the back of the barn, climb the fence and pounce on him. I’ve actually lasso’d him and tied him to a tree once (he is twice my weight). My vet still talks about the time he escaped the doctor’s clutches and left a chatty, robust man a quiet shell of his former self. My shearer hates this sheep – last spring, at shearing time, it took me 2 hours to get this rotten little sheep into the barn, and just as my shearer reached for the gate latch, there was this explosion of wood and debris as Demon Baby launched himself out of the side of the barn, straight through the wall…my shearer said it was like an Amish ‘Alien’ (barn buster, as opposed to chest buster.)

But.

These goofy big pups have actually taught themselves to herd – and the ONLY sheep they herd is Demon. Come suppertime, they race into the barnyard, ignoring all the other sheep, and chase Demon into the barn. And they hold him there. I can go in the barn and do unspeakably horrible things to him – pet him! Scratch him behind the ear! Kiss his nose! And * he can’t do a thing about it * except give me The Evil Look.

You have no idea what a relief it is to have these dogs do this for me, and they absolutely love it (they release him to go have his supper)…

#13

Trim HOOVES! :smack:

#14

My copperhead just tries to sink it’s fangs into my flesh.

#15

Ms Boods, Demon Baby sounds like he has some attitude! Give him an extra kiss for me…:smiley:

#16

My Chocolate Lab. Alpine. Died.

I was going to have to put her down in a few months. I knew this but was having a hard time facing it. Don’t know how I could have done it. But I knew it was coming.

She was still happy, and loved life, but was starting to have problems. My wife and I came home from a James Taylor concert and found her.

She was gone.

My ‘reward’ was her death. I just don’t know how I could have done it. Planned for it.

Miss you Alpine. You where the best.

#17

{{{{{{{enipla}}}}}}}}

Sorry to hear of the loss of your friend. She sounds like a delightful pet, and it appears that she loved you so much that she took the euthanasia decision out of your hands,

{{{{{{{{Alpine}}}}}}}}

We’ll remember what a great friend you were every time we see your daddy’s name written here.

Quasi

#18

Blonde – I offer for your pleasure, Demon Baby:

http://web.longwood.edu/staff/jpeden/me/demon.jpg

This is when he was a baby – and he was very sweet as a young’un.

(He’s got long horns what you can’t see very well in this photo).

He’s a toughie – but if you’re up to the challenge, bring along a t-shirt – if you throw it over his head, and he can’t see you, he thinks you can’t see him, and stands still. :rolleyes:

#19

Had a cat that would reward me by bringing samples of the local vermin in - once she brought a mouse in while I was asleep - and let it go under the bed so I would be amused by the scurrying of tiny paws among the springs

I lept out of bed and picked up one side to try to find the rodent - “Ha!” the flea-bag thinks, “this looks like a fun game!” and shoots under the bed after mousey.

So I’m left standing stark-bollock naked holding up a heavy bed that I can’t put down without squishing the mog…:rolleyes:

#20

OHHH…he’s a cutie-pie!

At the risk of this becoming a pet picture thread, here’s my oldest and youngest kitties:

http://f1.pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/psvaughan/vwp?.dir=/pics&.dnm=summer2003+030.jpg&.view=t