A deceased chocolate lab mix named Chevy LOVED to be inside closets. We moved three times and each time she’d find a closet in the new house (usually in my room) an make her home there. She even did it in a hotel we were staying in and in a small compartment in a tent.
We have a cat that gives people hickies. As a kitten he would attempt to nurse on any exposed flesh he could find (face, neck, arms, etc). Now he’ll just gently nip your chin.
I have a chicken that loves to pluck random feathers off other chickens. She, along with the others, is a free range chicken and only does it during the day when they are out of the coop. She will sneak up to another hen or rooster and stealthily pluck a feather or two.
My mom got an elderly cat named Jayde (now deceased) from a person off CL. This cat would sleep on her bed and many times my mom would wake up to find the cat flossing it’s teeth with her hair!:eek:
We had a terrier mutt who could not eat her treats on tile floors. She had to carry them to the carpeted area first, then she was fine. Fortunately, she was very thorough - I don’t recall walking on dog treat crumbs.
Q’itih, our tuxedo cat, is the only cat I’ve had or heard of that will allow you to rub her tummy without eventually clawing or biting to make you stop. This includes strangers. She may roll over and stop presenting, but she has never unsheathed a claw or bitten anybody.
Our beloved dog Sadie, gone two years now, was unspayed when we took her in. After she was strong enough for the surgery, we had it done. Apparently the associated hormonal changes can stimulate false pregnancy. She gathered all her toys in her bed and lay on her side, acting like she was nursing them.
Year ago we had a cockatiel, Cheerio, who adored my wife most of all. He learned that when she was out, she’d call before coming home, so whenever he missed her, he’d imitate my cell phone ring perfectly.
One of our current residents, Simone, a little pit bull from the streets, loves wearing clothing. Any time I get out her doggie t-shirts, sweaters, or costumes, she gets excited. Simone is gentle with other dogs; when I take her to charity dog walks, although she’s slowing down now, she used to like to run out in front, turn around, and wait for everyone to catch up…but has on several occasions doubled back to lick and encourage a dog who was grumbling or complaining.
All the animals I’ve known have been individuals with varying interests and habits.
My current cat both loves tummy rubs, deliberately solicits them, AND will nip and grab anyone foolish enough to provide them :eek: … except me. She will tolerate them from me.
I’ve had many cats over the years, but my 12 year old neutered male, Will, is the only cat I’ve ever heard of who masturbates. He started this a few years ago and would hump the back of my now 15 year old female, Remy. Sometimes she would ignore him, sometimes she would smack the hell out of him. It’s to the point now that he just needs to be near her. The biggest problem for me with this is that he wants to do it right after I go to bed. Remy likes to go to bed when I do. About 10 minutes after lights out, he starts singing about how horny he is and then he gets on the bed. He starts humping the covers near her, grunting and moaning. After 5 minutes or so, he lets out a big sigh, jumps down and goes about his business. Now, this may happen when I’m not around but it is definitely an almost every night thing. And it’s guaranteed to happen if I’m getting to bed late and really need to go to sleep.
Sweetie Pie was a fearless totally black cat, which my sister rescued from the jaws of a dog. I could run the vacuum cleaner right up to her and it didn’t faze her. She liked to ride around in the clothes basket like a wagon. She would wake me up in the middle of the night and jump in the basket for me to pull her. She also liked to be swung overhead in a canvas grocery bag until I would get tired of doing it. She would crawl up on my shoulder and if I bent over, she wanted to lay on my back. She came and got me one time when the washing machine was overflowing. If she needed medication, she seemed to know when I was thinking of giving her the next dose and would disappear.
Chiklet was a male and in the middle of the night, he would take a belt from an old bathrobe that I let him have and walk around with it in his mouth, wailing. I never could get the belt out of his mouth; his eyes were glazed over like he was in a trance. Every morning it would be in the food bowl. I don’t know if he was trying to feed it or decided he wanted food and dropped it there.
After my cat Pumpkin died a few years ago, Princess started waking me up in the middle of the night to put dry food in her bowl. It did not matter that there was already food there. I had to put new stuff in there.
I had a roommate once who had a spayed female that sprayed. She liked to do it in my bedroom into the wall socket. The sizzling would wake me up. She would catch a mouse outside, eat it, and leave the guts at the front door.
Maybe other dogs do this if allowed, I don’t know. I’ve never heard they do.
If I happen to lay over on the sofa and fall asleep on my side, my mini-Dachshund will slither up my torso to tangle himself up under my hair and fall asleep on my head. I let him do it because it cracks me up. He will happily sleep there for as long as I let him. It only bothers me when I need to remove him, because disentanglement can take time and be painful (not for him).
Not my dog, precisely (kaylasmom’s guide dog), and not a quirk, per se, but Valor is the only dog ever who has spent the night in the Disney Dream Suite.
That story brings back long-forgotten memories of my (spayed) cat Nancy Drew. I had a cabinet full of sweaters that she obsessed on. Every day when I came home from work, the sweaters that had been neatly folded on the shelves in the morning when I left would be strewn throughout the house. She would paw open the cabinet, delicately pull out sweaters one by one with her teeth, and carry them about the house.
Eventually she settled on one particular favorite sweater, which we took with us when we moved to Micronesia (not a place where sweaters were otherwise needed). She developed a bizarre ritual where she would take the sweater in her mouth and position it under her as she stood, so that it grazed her stomach. She would then go into a trance-like rocking state, kneading her paws with eyes glazed over as the sweater delicately swished back and forth over her stomach. It was disturbingly like watching someone in the grip of an uncontrollable fetish.
I’m the only person I know who has budgies who hate to go to bed at night and hate to get up in the morning. I’m ready for bed at 10 and they’re still playing and flying around and eating and bathing. I can only get them to go back into their cages by bribing them with treats.
In the morning when I uncover them, they look at me all crabby and bleary-eyed.
Many years ago, when my beloved Akita Kubla was just a pup, my husband trained him to ask to go out or come back in by hitting the door with his paw. Not scratching it, but smacking it. Fast forward from cute little fur ball to 100 pounds of muscle. The desire to go in or out was announced by a house shaking “THUMP, THUMP”. Think ahead people.
We also had a Rottweiler who would bark at different volumes by hand signals. I would say, “what does the little dog say?” and give her the signal and she would do a little, tiny bark. “What does the big dog say?” WOOF!
We had a Shepherd-Golden mix that would lay down and play dead if we said “BANG”. I think that ones more common though.
I had a cat that would come when I whistled. Silly cat. Everyone knows it’s supposed to be “Here kitty, kitty, kitty”. :rolleyes:
When I was a teen, we had a neighbor who taught his dog to do this - Holly would drop down, roll to her back, and put her paws over her eyes. Cracked me up every time!!
We pretty much quit teaching our dog anything once she mastered not peeing in the house. She’ll whine and/or give us the evil eye if she wants out.
Scotch, our tortie kitty, never learned how to make biscuits. She will scratch on the pillow, blanket, whatever she is on, but won’t knead the surface like other cats.
Her brother, Soda, loves spinach, but will only eat it if it is hand fed to him. Preferably with my husband holding him like a baby and me feeding him the spinach. He will grab my wrist and pull it to his mouth so that he can eat the tasty spinach from my fingers.
