Over the past few weeks, one of our cats has taken up kleptomania as a hobby.
Astrix has stolen:
Pens
Q-tips
A knitting needle
Mouse_Spouse’s wedding ring My cell phone
A pair of my panties :eek:
Bookmarks - many are still missing.
Most of these objects are dropped in his food bowl or we catch him in the act and take them away.
Once, I lived with a housemate who’s cat was a notorious sock thief. She would take socks and make a nest out of them, usually under the housemate’s bed.
While working at an animal shelter, we had a dog that would try to take hats. He wasn’t agressive, but having a 50 pound lab mix jump for your head *was * disconcerting. If he got his prize, he’d run around like mad, shaking it like a rag.
When I was a kid, our dog used to steal my mother’s used tampons. I didn’t know what they were, or why my mother was so frantically trying to keep the dog from running off with them.
At dinner at some friends’ house one evening, their Abyssinian leapt up on the table and, by the time I turned around, she had my club steak in her li’l kitty jaws and was dragging it off to be leisurely devoured.
I’ve mentioned before how our first cat stole my wedding ring, and it was missing for about six months!
Not long after she arrived, our newest cat did something with my original, metal-handled Atra razor. I can’t find it anywhere. They don’t make them anymore, but they still make the blades, so I ended up having to buy a plastic-handled one off eBay, because the metal ones are going for stupidly high prices now.
For some reason, my cats think the nylon-coated rubber bands I use to hold my hair back are articles of currency. The fuzzies will find and hoard them, and if the level of the kibble bowl gets below an acceptable level I will find them in the food bowl. I guess I have reinforced the behavior because I am always going to fill the food bowl when I find them!
We were living in Hawaii when the late Gweniever came to live with us. Gwen was a change thief. If she found change it went on the floor, where she would sweep it under the not-quite-wall-to-wall carpet in the living room. After three years in military housing there was close to $30 in change under that carpet when we took it up to move.
One of our cats likes to steal beans or snap peas that are accidentally dropped on the floor, pieces of plastic that have been thrown in the trash can, the mesh sieve-type thing in the bathtub drain (we find it all over the house), and once, an old tube of Desitin. She also once took a piece of lettuce from a salad bowl my mother was adding ingredients to and ran off with it.
Aside from the lettuce, we rarely catch her in the act. We usually either find her playing with it or she gives it to someone to toss for her so she can play fetch.
My late doberman Simon liked to steal white things - socks, paper, almost anything. And he’d take it to his treasure trove, which was a corner of the yard.
We had two ferrets and a waterbed. When we moved and disassembled the waterbed (it was a queensize–there were two rectangular structures underneath that had drawers in them, with about a foot wide channel in between. At the foot of the bed there was a piece of wood that hid the space between but no such piece at the top, under the headboard–we didn’t really think of this when we got the ferrets…) we found in the channel under the bed about thirty sponges, a couple of key rings, quite a few socks, some kid toys, a couple of paperback books ( each of these had to weigh almost as much as a ferret!) and the piece de resistance–ten or twelve insoles from our athletic shoes. I kept wondering where the hell those went!
I never have been able to figure out how in hell they got up onto the kitchen counters to get all those damned sponges!
Also classified under Things I find Under the Couch
pens
elastics
tampons
those plastic rings from milk jugs; they steal 'em out of the trash
lighters
earplugs
Yesterday I had a bowl of strawberries on the kitchen table, and I watched my big, tough(he thinks), tomcat ever so daintily pick one up by the stem, in his teeth, and carry it away. Then he came back and did it again, as I just stood there giggling at him.
I had a ferret when I was a kid. He specialized in shoes. I had a friend over to spend the night once and I forgot to warn her not to leave her shoes in the hallway.
We never found them.
We did find my stepmother’s glasses (in their case), a large hoard of dry dog food, my shoes, some small tupperware bowls, some socks, keyrings, sponges, magazines, plastic cups…
I took in a stray cat in college, he had gotten into something nasty and had an eye infection. So, we took him to the vet and got eye drops. Now, he hated the eye drops. He stole the little dropper bottle off the counter and hid. So, I dutifully went back to the vet and got him another bottle. Hid that one too. He also hid the little dropper bottle of cassette head cleaner because it looked like the eye drop bottle.
Shadow likes socks, but he doesn’t like mine very much, it’s only 'im indoors who is a victim of the sock thief. We’ve found them all round the house, especially behind the sofa and also in the corner of the shower-room.
Ophelia only ever steals one thing. It’s an old elasticated support bandage I had a long while ago when I damaged a couple of bones in my foot. When I’d finished with it, I left it on a chair in the bedroom. She took it away and has since then dragged it all over the house with her. I was going to throw it away once I’d done with it, but she seems to have become rather attached to it. This morning she was half-way down the stairs having a fight with it.
When my dog was a puppy, she used to steal hair scrunchies to play with. She also likes to steal underwear. Once, when we were having a dinner party, we put a tray a vegetables on our coffee table- when we turned around, there she was, delicately eating the veggies! She also has stolen gum before, and once took my brother’s orange paintballs (we have a white dog.)
I have two. I love 'em to death, but they are a pain in the ass sometimes. A sampling of what I have found underneath (and inside of the box spring) of my bed:
Keys
Wallet (MIA)
Remotes (1 MIA)
Condoms
random pieces of trash
shoes
socks
panties
Bras
silverware
video game controllers
watches
1/8 oz of green organic material in a bag (MIA) Pet Semetary by Stephen King (Odd, that one)
A golf club (I’m not kidding)
A computer mouse, and later a keyboard
$7 in loose change
Sunglasses
Hats
Not content with “random trash”- at one point they had the kitchen trash can wedged underneath the bed.
…and many, many more.
Last night one of them attempted to steal the studded collar off of my SO’s German Shepard’s neck.
each of these had to weigh almost as much as a ferret!) and the piece de resistance–ten or twelve insoles from our athletic shoes. I kept wondering where the hell those went!