My Luna was a Very Small Kitty when we first brought her home, and she and the guinea pig didn’t get alone. One day Lunabrat was sprawled out asleep on the edge of my daughter’s bed, with one leg dangling down. This, apparently, was too tempting a bait for Guinea the pig, who was on my daughter’s lap on the floor. She scuttled over to the bed, reached up, grabbed the offending paw, and yanked my poor little kitten down to the floor. Then she zipped back to the safety of my daughter’s lap, wheeking happily.
I was summoned to the scene by Mini-Marli’s gales of laughter. The sight of Luna sitting on the floor looking more bewildered than any creature I’d ever seen before was priceless. I still wish I’d had a camera handy.
About twenty years ago I acquired a very spooky kitty named Pixel. She was the compleat fraidy cat and never did get to the point where she could accept the world with any sort of equanimity. One day she was standing underneath the coffee table and I tossed a ball of paper in that direction, but it missed the table and hit her in the back leg. SPROING, WHAP! as she leapt straight up, bashing her head on the underside of the table. This was apparently VERY TERRIFYING, because once again, SPROING, WHAP! Again, total terror–"SPROING, WHAP! Finally the blows to her cranium appeared to give her some intelligence points back and she managed to get enough forward momentum to escape the Coffee Table of Doom. Dopey animal…
I had an Aussie Shepherd who liked to catch birds on the wing and was terrifyingly good at it. She got so good at it that she used the Doberman to flush them out for her. She’d run toward the fence, which was lined with cedar trees, barking furiously. The Dobie, figuring something MUST be amiss, would follow after her, also barking furiously. He’d continue behind the cedars, but the Aussie would stop short and catch one of the escaping birds that flushed out of the bushes. Mind you, this was not a fluke–I witnessed her catching birds this way on several occasions.
My SO had a very temperamental and bitchy cat who learned how to flush the toilet and did so incessantly until he had to disconnect the handle and install a string pull instead. She would very carefully get into her catbox and pick up turds, walking them three footed out to the hallway to leave them in the traffic pattern anytime she felt annoyed by anyone, which was pretty much constantly. I could never figure out why she didn’t just take a dump in the hallway to express her displeasure, but no–she shat in the box then moved it out when she felt peevish. Weird cat.
A few years ago my husky was walking down the hallway and the cat was standing there back toward him. He had chased the cat for years and never got close. Now he had a free shot. I could see the gears clanking in his brain as he went over the possibilities. He could let a huge bark out. He could jump on its back. He could chase it. Nope. He decided to stick his nose up the cats ass and let out a huge snort. He must have blown the snot out of the cats nose. It went straight up in the air and screeched. Then took off at full speed through the front room down the basement stairs. He followed barking loudly. The cat was hidden for several hours.
We have wild turkeys in our neighborhood. Our wooded backyard is enclosed with a split rail fence and the gate is often open.
One morning I looked out the window and a flock of about eight turkeys had gotten into our yard. They were walking single file trying to figure out to get out (since the gate was now behind them). The “head” turkey lead them all into the corner of the fence (not thinking to turn the corner…) and the whole flock just followed him right into the corner, still walking until they were all on top of each other, just like that scene from Animal House (with the marching band).
Finally, after minutes of scuttling around in that corner the “head” turkey flew up into our trees and everyone else followed. What turkeys!
Well, apparently I learned all my turkey biology from WKRP because I jumped screaming “As god as my witness I thought turkey’s couldn’t fly!”
We had a big orange tiger cat named Morris: who could twist himelf to the point where he was lying with his face and front paws facing one way and his butt and back paws facing the other. I had a perfect aerial photo of it. People would look at it and then start turning it around trying to make sense of it.
Back when I was an electrician, a buddy of mine had a 1/2 Lab-1/2 Pittbull named Jason. Jason had made a career out of fetching anything that could be thrown, rolled, or dropped out of an airplane.
Ever see a dog bring back an offroad tire? I have. Same goes for a large bulk wire spool, that was four feet across. The kind that folks make tables out of. If he couldn’t get his jaws around a rock the size of a basketball, he’d simply head butt it all of the way back to you.
We were wiring the master bedroom in a two story house once, the bedroom being of the upstairs variety. There was a cutout for the sliding glass door, but the balcony hadn’t been built yet, so there was a 6’ by 8’ opening that overlooked the side of the hill that the house was built on. No door yet, either.
As we carried our stuff up the stairs, a guy was sweeping debris out the slider opening and down the side of the hill, so that we could move our ladders around without fear of tripping over anything while we worked.
When you drill out a house prior to pulling the wire (back then, anyway) a hole saw was used to make a hole in the siding so that you could mount an exterior light later. The hole saw cut a round piece of siding out, which measured 3 and 5/8ths inches across, which was perfect for using to play Fetch.
Now Jason had been fetching these pieces of siding all of his life, so it was instinct for him to notice the laborer casually pick one up, and fling it out the slider opening.
I heard my buddy shout, and I turned around just in time to see Jason sailing out the slider opening, with nothing between him and the ground 40 feet below except a sudden stop.
“You idiot! You just killed my dog!”
While the laborer was frantically apologizing, we heard a noise in the stairwell. We look down, and here comes Jason, on 3.2 legs. It was pitiful watching him drag his way slowly up the stairs, and then crawl towards the laborer, and deposit the piece of siding on his foot.
There’s really nothing funnier, and you’d think that after 13 years, either the NinjaPooch would’ve figured it out, or I’d grow tired of laughing at it, but, nope. Every single time she comes in from the backyard, she takes of running through the kitchen, just manages to skid around the corner into the dining room, and ends up sliding head-first into the wall.
Ah, yes. The main reason I keep my kitchen floor clean and shiny is so I can watch the cats skid headfirst into the dishwasher when they come flying in from the living room at Mach 3.
Our neighbour’s cat wandered into our yard, while our cat was out there too. The pair of them were sat a couple of feet away from each other, wailing up a storm.
I look out the window, and there is a squirrel sitting on the lawn too, just watching the two cats in their yelling. So I called the dog, opened the back door, and said “get the squirrel”. He goes rushing out, evaluates the situation, and sits next to the squirrel to watch the cats :smack:
Another cat, another squirrel:
I’m watching my cat through the kitchen window, as he stalks a squirrel. Up the fence, up through the tree (the squirrel is well aware of his presence, btw), until he gets just close enough…for the squirrel to reach out a paw, go thwap thwap thwap around the cat’s head, until the cat runs away. We have mean squirrels in our neighbourhood
the dive master is now proudly owned by an ocelot-striped kitten of teensy proportions now maybe six months old that he rescued when she was only a few weeks old at most. he spotted her by the side of the road - and the rest is history. *god, i love that man… *
she says, ‘jump.’
he asks, ‘how high?’
and, she has him well trained.
the funniest thing is how she deals with the ‘wolf pack.’ those who have read about the dive master’s wolf pack in past postings already know the man is certifiable about animals.
the whereof-mentioned tiny ocelot is accompanied by a gray, magnificently-furred elder statesman named ‘mako’ (yes, for the shark. we’re both scuba divers), a four-year-old giant greenwing macaw named ‘trigger,’ (all 5 pounds of her, aka, the hook-billed, red-headed velociraptor from hell) and, The Wolf Pack: rontue, rommel, elsa, and nikita. they are two *very * large german shepherds, and two moderately-sized huskies.
it’s a zoo and i admit to it. i don’t call them the wolf pack for nothing.
kona, our ‘tiny ocelot,’ has absolutely no fear of them. she’ll mix right in the middle of the rest of them, any time, any place, including dinner time.
she threads her way through a forest of furry legs without turning a hair, hops up to her spot on the counter where the cat food is, and starts eating. if she gets done early, she goes and investigates everybody ELSE’S food while **they ** are eating. nobody sees fit to argue with her.
mind you, rommel (german shepard), weighs in somewhere in the neigborhood of 130 pounds. he could eat small children for lunch. :eek:
elsa’s only a little smaller, and the huskies are maybe 40 - 60 pounds. and here is a kitten all of maybe 3 pounds on a good day horning in on their meals.
hilarious.
the dogs don’t seem to mind her - even rontue (husky), who is a food fanatic and guards his food bowl.
My sweet cat Saturn came home after having a pin put in her broken leg with a lampshade on. She was walking on the carpet in the living room and her head was drooping lower and lower…until she got the edge caught the carpet. She stood there crying until I picked her up. Poor baby.
When Phoenix was six weeks old, and still fit in the palm of my hand, I turned around to watch her steal a slice of roast beef off my plate as long as she is. My nan and I try to wrest it from her so we can cut it up for her but she has a firm grip on this thing and she is growling. I’ve also seen her steal a pork chop off my brother’s plate and devour it eagerly. Fatty.
Alvin the Rottie eats slowly and likes to bury tidbits. I’ve seen him try to hide a pig’s ear in the shadows of a doorway once. He was not happy when Cooper sniffed it out.
Phoenix and Alvin ‘box’ quite frequently; she’ll bat at his mouth while he parries and shoves with his snout.
Our previous cat, Poppy, was a beautiful long-haired tortie but dumb as a box of rocks. She used to race through the dark hallway on the bottom level of the house and SMACK into the closed doors, every time. Once, she fell asleep across Cooper’s (ridgeback) front legs and he looked so distressed because he wanted to put his head down to go to sleep but he couldn’t wake the cat!
Poppy also had a fondness for sleeping on hot air vents; this little furball with wisps pushed upwards by the force of the air.
I’ve seen our cats get into positions like that, and squeeze into places that I would have sworn were physically impossible. Odd, I don’t remember them slipping out for a rocket ride in a radiation storm or anything…
Our Murphy, the above yellow lab, had never been in the water and was about 5 or 6 when we went to a friends house who lived on a lake.
The friends have two retrievers who routinely ran and jumped off the dock. (Water dogs and most other dogs will throw their chest out, keeping head up when they jump in. This is not exactly in their DNA.)
Murphy followed in her happy galumphy manner and didn’t jump into the water.
She ran out of dock. Like a cartoon character with her legs still running and dropped like a brick into the waist deep water.
The look on her face when she emerged was priceless and the fact that she was trying to get back on the dock ( front paws on it, but the back paws couldn’t make it, had every neighbor and onlooker ) in tears.
I finally waded over and hefted her butt back onto the dock.
By the end of the day Murphy’s DNA kicked into high gear and ‘got it’, but that first time in the water still makes us giggle.
Nearly identical experience here, except it was Junior Cat’s hind leg. I was in the next room, and JC came racing into the kitchen in utter terror, chased by the shopping bag. My first thought was that Senior Cat was chasing him… then I quickly realized that this was impossible as SC’s legs were not protruding from the bottom of the bag. I was laughing so hard during this that I couldn’t even begin to try to catch and free him. JC ran around for a bit, then the bag finally tore loose on a kitchen chair. Whereupon JC bolted upstairs and under a bed for some hours. My best guess as to what heppened: JC went into the bag to play “cave kitty”. When he emerged, his leg got caught. Which startled him. So he ran. And the Demon Shopping Bag CHASED him :eek:
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