I had a cat growing up and for some odd reason she loved cigarette smoke. My dad used to smoke and mum did, but she quit and dad died.
But whenever we’d have company that smoked, the cat would come out of wherever she was and try to get right into the face of the person smoking.
Now normally the cat was indifferent to company. She’d come out and look at them and look like she’d be saying, “I didn’t ask them over. Oh well.” And then walk out of the room.
But if a smoker was in the room she’d peer in and hang around then she’d give them the old head butt and rub against the leg. The next thing you know she’d be hopping up next to them and sticking her nose right in their face. It was odd, she wouldn’t bother the cigarette if it was lit but resting in the ashtray.
But as soon as the smoker put the cigarette to his/her mouth she’d be in their face.
So what kind of UNUSUAL things does your cat or dog like? I don’t mean things like catnip or food, which pretty much every pet likes.
My dog also has an unusual like in collars. He loved to wear them. If he had on his collar and you took a piece of string and and shaped it into a circle, he’d try to put his neck in it and wear it like a collar.
My cat adores licking the water off me when I get out of the hot tub. Only the chemically water from the hot tub, clean pure water from the well when I shower she ignores …
This is apparently a catnip-related thing. There are supposedly chemicals in olives similar to those found in catnip and in some cats at least can trigger a similar response.
We had a cat who would attack for a green olive. Around the same time we had another cat who went absolutely bonkers for celery. He would roll around in celery leaves as if they were catnip. Is there anything catnip-ish in celery?
Our springer spaniel Phyllis loves to lick the water off Mr. S’s leg when he gets out of the tub . . . but only the first leg. Never licks the second one. And never MY leg when I get out of the tub.
Her sister Dottie licks the wet bath rug.
The late shepherd/lab mix Scout liked to lick any stray water off the edge of the tub.
Good thing they all liked to lick different things or we’d have had trouble.
Apparently, my cat likes to watch me shower. Every morning, at least once during my shower, I’ll see my cat’s head suddenly poke though the shower curtain. She’ll look at me and stare at the flowing water for a minute or so and will finally walk away. Every single day.
My previous dog was fascinated by the dishwasher. He would get more and more excited as the dishwasher got more and more full. By the time it got to the point where I’d put the detergent in, he was absolutely frenzied. We never did anything to encourage or incite him. He was just nuts about the dishwasher.
Err, I meant to say “showering with me” instead of “showing with me”. I also meant to capitalize my cat’s name, Ginger. Excellent job at editing while typing there, I know. Try not to be jealous.
One of my cats loves fruit-flavored baby food. We give the cats meat baby food as a treat and the fruit stuff is for the gecko, but whenever we start dishing it up, she begs to be allowed to lick the spoon. None of the other cats show the slightest interest.
My wild guess is that your cat is just dumbfounded that you’d choose to cover yourself in running water, and has to keep checking in to assure herself that you are, in fact, that crazy.
Reading through the thread, finally I have an answer to the ‘green olives made my old cat flip out and nip fingers that had olive juice on them’ question.
I had a ferret that liked to lick soapy water residue off your legs, too.
Ferrets near-universally seem to love raisins, to the point where at least one major ferret food maker boasts the use of raisin juice in their ferret kibble. They also pretty much adore the taste of Ferretone/Linatone/that oily vitamin supplement for pets.
I came in here to add this. My mom’s cat does this. She’ll practically eat your hands (the cat, not my mom).
Mr. Bits likes those bland water crackers. He wants whatever you’re putting in your mouth, but we try to not feed him much people food, and he’s not too insistent. But whenever I’m eating water crackers, I have to hide or he’ll hurt me.
That funny because bananas are the only fruit that my dog won’t eat. If we offer her one she’ll grab it and start chewing, then give us a WTF look and spit it out. She likes apples and pears though.
My cat Dolphie loves tobacco. She will lick the fingers of smokers, and steal and shred cigarettes, then roll around in the tobacco. She also loves men’s armpits. She licks my husband’s while he’s sleeping, and has accosted my male guests. She has also been known to crotch-dive a man, and stick her head inside their stinky shoes and breathe deeply. She is a very weird cat.
When the cat we had when I was a kid was young (probably under a year or so), she loooooooooved starlight mints - the little red and white hard candies. She’d hear you open the bag and come running. We’d drop one on the floor for her, she’d bat it around for a while, and then eventually she’d pick it up and drop it in her water dish. We figured it must dissolve a bit and make the water minty, but it still seemed like pretty odd behavior. She grew out of it after a while.
