Pets and their funny idiosyncrasies

In My Humble Opinion
1

Last night, I cooked myself a batch of mustard greens with dinner, knowing well that it was just for me, since no one else in my family likes them. I forgot about one of my four-legged family members, though: Mojo the German shepherd is very well-trained, and never, ever begs for people chow… except for mustard greens. Bacon? Chicken? Steak? Eh, he’ll take a bite if it’s offered, but he will wiggle and dance and look pitiful and appealing if there are greens on my plate. (And yes, I fixed a bowl and we snacked on it after dinner. I don’t encourage the dogs to eat at the table with us humans, but I can’t resist Mojo’s pitiful look.)

The other two dogs don’t seem to have any truly weird idiosyncrasies: Sebastian wants any and all people food, and thinks that he’s a 120-pound lap dog. Jojo loves his Kong (toy) to the point that you have to physically wrestle it away from him. All of them want to go for rides any time they hear keys jingling. But Mo and his fetish for greens make me laugh.

So what’s your pet’s weird and funny thing?

2

My furry boy will get all up in my face when I’m eating yogurt or ice cream. He doesn’t care about anything else.

He’s a cat btw.

And I love mustard (and collard, and turnip) greens and also have to cook them only for myself since no one else will eat them. :slight_smile:

3

Neither of our cats is particularly food-weird, but big ol’ Al comes with a handy built-in warning feature: about four seconds before he horks up a hairball, he makes this miserable, absolutely pitiful “mrrroooooowwww” noise, as pathetic-sounding as a freshman at the end of his first tequila bender. It’s like a big flashing red warning light: “Achtung! Achtung! Remove the cat from any rugs or furniture! Achtung!” And then … hurk-hurk-hurk-hurk-hurk-BLEACH.

4

Our springer spaniel Dottie is a “butt-slammer”: If you scratch her butt vigorously, she’ll put her head down, start growling/snarling, repeatedly slam her butt up against you, and stomp her hind feet up and down. It’s hilarious. She also does a horizontal version every night on the couch with Mr. S. He’ll scratch her butt and she’ll turn into “Mad Dog,” writhing around and growling and snarling, but obviously loving it.

Her sister Phyllis used to play a funny version of hide and seek with me, which involved me hiding around the corner of the living room and having her growl at me increasingly loudly as I slowly peeked around the corner at various intervals and heights. Eventually she would leap off the couch and run over to my hiding place, and then I would jump out and go “RAHHHHH!!!” at which she would immediately turn tail and go flying back up onto the couch. Lather, rinse, repeat. It was great fun, but for some reason she won’t do it anymore. She will growl, etc., but when she runs over to me she just rolls over for a belly rub. What a poop.

5

I :heart: weird pets.

My loveable dufus Gordon Setter Nick had a strange ritual with me-he has done this since he was a baby. I will kiss his cheek repeatedly making loud, smacky-kissy noises and saying in a silly voice “I love you Snicky!” and he’ll throw his head back, close his eyes and make strange little grumbly whine/growls that escalate into a howl… SO damned cute, all the while wriggling like a puppy.

My oldest dog is on daily heart medication and I give it to her in a little bit of braunsweiger; all the dogs and cats get a little bit of braunsweiger at that time as a treat and my younges Papillon Bunny does a little frantic dance that always makes me laugh. First, she throws back her head and howls like the world’s smallest timber wolf, then rears up on her hind legs and twists her body back and forth like she’s on Dancing With the Stars.

My old Gordon boy Corey had 3 favorite foods- spaghetti (I only had to say the word sketties and he would spin in circles); raw potatoes (he would help himself to one occasionally from the open shelkves under the counter) and raw cabbage- I would give him the core whenever I fixed cabbage and he would chew on it like a rawhide.

My oldest Papillon Cricket carries a stuffed toy around with her all the time and when she lays down uses it as a pillow.

I had a horse years ago that would try to get in the car with me, stick his big ol’ head right in, even put a front hoof up into it once.

6

My cat does the same thing. He’s a talker generally but the sound he makes before he vomits is very distinctive. I usually am able to grab a section of newspaper from the recycling and slide it under him. If I leave a section of paper laying on the floor he would never in a million years puke on it on his own.

7

Miss Lucia “sings” a high pitched yow-yow-yow-yow! that sounds as if she’s possessed by demons and gives me ample warning when she’s about to be sick. I feel that this helpful warning device should be installed in all cats, dogs, and small children.

8

I learned just this week that my cat responds oddly when I say, “Suh-WEEEE-EEET!” with a very high voice. She looks at me and meows without making any sound. She also doesn’t like whistling - it makes her agitated.

My husband’s cat makes that loud, piteous mewling sound, but it’s not before hurking - it’s when everyone else is in a different room from her, and she wants us all to come to her (because heaven forbid Her Highness should come to US). You’d swear this cat had her tail caught in a mousetrap or something!

9

I’ve posted before about “Puppy-Cat,” the lilac Siamese I had who was rejected by her mother and raised by a mother dog. Cat use to fetch, drink out of the toilet, and walk on a lease.

10

My cat has learned to roll over in exchange for food. God help you if you try to get him to do it and have no food. He also likes to have someone pet him while he eats.

11

My cats refuse to eat most “human food,” even if it’s meat or fish. They will occasionally make an exception for lettuce, sunflower seeds, and crackers.

12

My black pug named Spoon loves to play. However, when he does so, he will roll onto his back at some point, wriggle around, and make noises just like an Ewok. I have to video record that sometime soon.

13

I just acquired the dog so I haven’t really had enough time to discover/develop any little weirdnesses besides the fact that she’s just damn funny. She had me and the trainer cracking up last Sunday. She just wouldn’t be bad so we could correct her. We were hoping she’d wander off so we could work on coming when called, but she followed us to the deck chairs and flopped over for a belly rub and would. not. move.

The cat, however, is known as Fetish Kitty. He has a leather and vinyl fetish. Anything you are wearing, if it is made of leather, vinyl, pleather, plastic, or rubber, he will be all over it. Take off your stinky leather shoes and he’ll lay on top of them, jam his head inside, rub himself all over it, all the time purring like he swallowed a lawnmower. His favorite chair in the house? The leather one, of course. All of my shoes have little kitty claw marks all over them from Fetish Kitty’s lovemakings.

14

My Long Haired Dachshund Max had a lot of idiosyncrasies. My favorite one was how he liked to watch television. Some genius animal experts claim that dogs can’t watch tv, but they are out of their minds.

If ever there was a dog or just about any animal on tv, we couldn’t enjoy the show, because Max would bark at it and try to attack it.

But his favorite thing to watch was baseball. Once the game started he’d be a little bit interested, and start tilting his head. But his true excitement began when there was a man on 2nd base. No, I am not going to try to convince anybody that the dog understood baseball (he might have though). But, when there’s a man on 2nd base, the view from the Center field camera shows the runner lead off second and walk off the screen (as would the umpire and the 2nd baseman/shortstop in different directions). As the runner moved on and off the screen, Max would go crazy barking at him, and trying to find him behind the TV! This was much more fun to watch than the actual baseball game.

God, I miss that dog!

15

My cat will watch hockey on TV with me. He’ll sit on the coffee table and watch the players skate back and forth. Once in a while he’ll stand up on his back feet in front of the TV and bat at the players as they skate around. And one particularly funny time he got up on top of the TV and tried to bat at the players from above. This lasted about a minute before he fell off and landed on the floor. He hasn’t tried that again.

16

I too have a black pug, and they seem to be practically nothing but idiosyncrasies. :slight_smile: They have a lot of personality and he’s also pretty clever at times. Clever enough to ‘forget’ commands when it suits him, but instantly recognize the words ‘car ride’, ‘treat’, ‘cookie’ or his dog friends’ names, even when used in casual conversation. There’s a huge difference in response to:

“Hey Bruce, you want to go outside?” (Response: casual enthusiasm)
“Hey Bruce, you want to go for a car ride?” (Response: extreme enthusiasm)
“Hey Bruce, you want to go see <another dog’s name>?” (Response: insanity)

I also trained him to scratch at the door when he wants out. He seemed to leap to his own conclusion that scratching on things makes things happen. He only does this if I’m not in view, so he’ll just leave the room and go scratch the fridge or something. So, I’ve learned to ask him when he scratches: Bruce, do you want to go out? Bruce, do you need water? and just run down the list. Answers, crudely translated:

No: <silence> <eventual resumption of scratching>
Yes: collar goes jingle jingle jingle Expectant pug arrives at my side.

Usually a fridge scratch means “food”, which is funny because I never fed him out of the fridge, he somehow just got the suggestion. Because he’ll ask for food a lot of times, I’ll say “No you don’t need any food.” Then I hear a lot of puffing and scratching and things moving in the kitchen and confusedly investigate, only to find:

Pug, sitting angelically in the center of the kitchen.
Giant auto-water-dispenser, empty, moved into center of room next to pug.
Pug: <expectant look>

He also likes to get involved with TV shows that involve dogs or horses and barks or howls at them excitedly. If I tell him to be quiet, he gets quiet for a bit, but you can tell he really wants to bark. So when the urge becomes overwhelming he watches the TV and goes, barely audibly, woof. < pause> woof. If I scold him again, he’ll take it down to a barely noticeable huffing exhale noise through his nose. Hnff. Hnff.

Interestingly he responds even with the audio off or with only audio playing at all, but only to dogs (or wolves) and horses - not to cats, people, or other things. It’s weird.

17

Max watching TV reminded me of another one.

I had a Gordon Setter names Fancy who was getting up in years, and she was obsessed with…
…Jeopardy. She could be anywhere in the house and if the Jeopardy theme came on she would dash to the couch and sit there staring at the TV through the entire show. Like an old woman, she would start to nod off and snap her head up over and over.

I have NO idea what attracted her to it, if it was the sound effects of maybe Alex Trebec’s voice, but she LOVED Jeopardy. And fake Jeopardy on Saturday Night Live did not intwerest her at all; she had to have the real deal.

I have not been able to bring myself to watch Jeopardy since I lost her.

18

He will, if it’s an important piece of paper and/or if you haven’t read it yet but reallyreally wanted to.

(RIP, Clint, who once wiped his ass on Mr. Horseshoe’s tax returns and left a nice shit smear all over it.)

19

My cats open cabinets and drawers, and love to curl up in the bathroom sink. Violet is obsessed with my make up and I’ve put a lock on it’s drawer.

My pug Sweet Pea loves poultry to the point she’ll try to climb into the fridge and guards it for hours as it roasts.

She also licks the furniture. Just picks a random spot and goes at it. There’s also her intense scratching/digging at the living room furniture. It’s like when pets scratch to be let in, only it’s a sofa!

20

My former cats (not sure if ex still has them or if they have passed) LOVED black olives and canned green beans. My niece’s cat loved black olives also, but she said that they had to be taken off of pizza for him to eat it.

My cats were also very smart. (Of course, all of us pet-parents think our little ones are gifted). Tasha especially would do it, and then Beth would chime in…they would yell for me if I was in the bathroom…Maaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah! I think they heard me talking to my mother on the phone and calling her Ma.

However, when she came to visit when I was getting married, they had a different name for her…they called her “Meh”. I would hear them in the morning calling for her, “Meh, Meh, Meh.” If they got no answer and their food bowls were empty, we would then get the 5 alarm “Maaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!” until they were sated…

My Prince (Boston Terrier) loved mixed vegetables, but would shoot the peas back into his bowl until he finished the other vegetables and then eat them. He would also eat all the leftover gravy we poured over his food and leave his food in the dish, waiting for something better (such as roast beef) to come along…he also liked his coffee in the morning with a little bit of leftover bagel (and cream cheese, of course) and he loved yogurt. He got the container stuck to his face one time and growled at me when I tried to remove it…almost wet myself laughing…