I’m not usually a pet thread kinda person, but my dog has an amusing quirk. He doesn’t like hardwood floors very much (80% of our house). So his signal to be picked up, etc. is often to run away from me to get onto a rug as he likes to be picked up and put down on top of a rug. So asking him “Up?” causes him to run 15 feet the other way and then he sits down, turns around, wagging and waiting.
Two cats I had years ago.
Chiclet was a neutered male who liked to play with the belt from my blue bathrobe so I gave it to him. In the middle of the night, I would hear this plaintive cry from him and get up to investigate, only to find him carrying the belt around the apartment and crying. I would not be able to take the belt from him. It was like he was in a trance and would not let it go and I would just have to let him get on with this ritual. Every morning, the belt was in the food bowl. I don’t know if the belt was a baby he wanted to feed or if he saw the food bowl and it broke him out of his trance and he dropped the belt.
The other cat, Sweetie Pie, had been rescued as a kitten by my sister when she pried her from the jaws of a dog. For whatever reason, that cat was fearless. My roommate, who had cats of her own, had vinyl grocery bags and after she unloaded them, she would throw them to the floor to see if the cats wanted to get in them. Sweetie Pie would crawl inside one and I would pull on the handles and ride her around on the carpet. When I stopped, she would stay in there and want to go again. It progressed to me flying her around off the ground in the bag in circles and she loved it. I always got tired before she did. Also, if you picked her up and held her, if you bent forward a little, she would crawl on your back and stay there until you removed her.
When Sweetie Pie wanted me to get out of bed in the morning, she would start shoving things off the bedside table in ascending order of fragility—paper, then plastic things. When I heard something glass sliding toward the edge, I got up. She was a smart cat.
When my sister was a teenager (I was out of the house by then), she had a cat that batted at the doorknob when he wanted to come into the house. The house had a decorative outcropping that ran under all of the front windows and right up to the door at doorknob level, and he would jump up on that and bat at the doorknob till somebody came and opened the door for him.
All the cats we’ve had have been quite different from each other. The current one is no exception.
The most baffling habit is picking up cat toys* and moving them next to, or sometimes in, its food and water dishes.
It seems like some sort of religious thing. Like offerings to the food god or something.
It had been a rescue kitty and was in a house with a lot of other rescues. So something it picked up there for some reason. Some sort of “Mine!” thing?
- In particular “sparkle balls”. Soft balls with glitter things hanging off.
Have his vision checked. I noticed my old terrier doing that. She had cataracts.YMMV.
The only “toy” my dog would play with was an old aluminum spool that had once held wire; say 6 inches in diameter. He would chase it around the yard, butting it with his nose and growling, and rip up tufts of grass with his teeth and toss them around. If you called him he would stop dead and lift his head and I swear to god actually smile like “I’m having fun – wadda you want?” The first time my one uncle saw him do it he was afraid he (the dog) had gone mad and was going to attack him. We tried lots of various actual dog toys and games; he wanted no part of either. But that spool was “his” from the time we brought it home to the day he died.
When I was a kid, I had a pet monkey (Javanese macaque). I had built a cage for her, which had a shelf that went from the front of the cage to the back, and took up the middle third of the cage. The back part of the shelf had her bedroom, and the front part of the shelf was her porch.
She had a little tuna can that originally started out as her food dish, but became her toy. She would go down to the bottom of the cage, underneath the shelf, and then reach up and pull the tuna can to the edge of the shelf. Then she would position herself as far as she could to the other side of the cage, and carefully reach up over her head to pull the can off the shelf. As soon as the can started to fall, she would leap up and back and try to get onto the shelf before it clattered at the bottom of the cage.
Over and over and over.
Crow, I had a cat who did exactly the same thing! Exactly, in all respects. Including chasing the thrown treats into different rooms, hunting down the elusives, etc.
We had a variation, where she would chase bottle caps. Those she would bring back to me so I could throw them again.
I have to tell you all, I’m without pets at the moment, so I can’t contribute, but I am LOVING this thread! I love reading about y’alls kindness and love you give to your animals. Thanks so much for writing them down and sharing them. 
This reminds me: I like to hide kitty treats (like Easter eggs) through out the house. That way when kitty is strolling about the house, he’ll often stumble upon a surprise kitty treat. One of my favorite “hiding” places is on the bathroom counter. And when I wake up in the morning to brush my teeth and see that the treats are gone, it makes me feel all giddy inside.
Grrr!, when I first started giving treats to Noir Kitty, I did this. He seemed to enjoy hunting for them. I think I got out of the habit when I realized he liked chasing them. I need to start doing this again.
These kitties are special, I think. And they’re so much fun to watch. I wish I could get Noir interested in chasing other things. I tried balls and sliding his toys across the floor and I even cut up a toilet paper roll into rings and set them rolling. He’s curious as long as they’re moving but as soon as they stop, he loses interest.
I realized just a few days ago that Noir has another quirk. Sometimes when I pet him, he tries to lead me into the kitchen. Then I tell him, “No, you just ate. You don’t get any more.” I knew he didn’t always eat everything in one go but it turns out that, apparently, he just wants me there. If I let him lead me in, he’ll go over to his dish and placidly finish up what’s left. Whether it’s that he enjoys the pleasure of my company or he likes knowing someone is making sure monsters don’t sneak up on him while he’s distracted, I don’t know.