Pi (cat) is a hair sniffer. He has to get right up next to you and stick his nose in your hair and sniff loudly. This wouldn’t be too bad if not for the fact that he has a chronic stuffed nose and sometimes sneezes big wads of snot, which he will sometimes do after a big sniff of your hair.
Jack (cat) must chew on every plastic bag he can find.
My young dog (8 months) goes on a 10 PM spaz run like cats do. He runs up the stairs, down the stairs, up the stairs, and down and around the kitchen table.
We think he does it to test his precision cornering and suspension system.
I don’t currently have any pets, but I have a couple weird-pet stories. When I was in college, I briefly adopted a stray cat. My apartment was on the ground floor and my back door opened onto an alley. One evening I stepped out back to take a photo of the full moon for a project I was working on and I left my back door open behind me so I could make a quick retreat if necessary (this was in Baltimore, not known for safe alleys). This skinny little alley cat walked over and right into my apartment!
I took care of him for a few weeks – he would go to the back door and ask to be let out in the morning, and when I got home from classes in the evening I’d go out back and call for him, and he’d appear a few minutes later to spend the night with me. He was the most affectionate cat I’ve ever known, and would follow me around the apartment until I went to bed. Because he was so affectionate at night and disappeared every morning, I named him Lover.
I didn’t want to keep a litter box in the apartment because I wasn’t supposed to have pets and the landlord had some workers in during the day fixing the pipes. I was worried at first, because Lover was an unneutered male and I thought he might try to mark my apartment. He turned out to be a gentleman, though –when he needed to go, he would go to the back door and ask to be let out. If it was an emergency, he would dash to the bathroom and jump into the bathtub so I could wash the mess down the drain.
I would’ve loved to have kept him, but I was going home for four weeks over winter break, none of my friends could take care of him for that long, and I didn’t want to leave him out in the cold, so I gave him up to the SPCA. I really hope he found a good home. I still miss him. Here are some pictures I took of him.
Oh, I thought of one for Phyllis! (English springer spaniel)
We play a sort of hide and seek. Just me; she won’t do it with Mr. S. She’ll be on the couch, and I’ll start sneaking off toward the hallway, out of sight. She starts watching me very intensely. Once I’m out of sight, I get down on hands and knees and slowly peek around the corner – at which point she starts to quietly growl, until I pull my head back out of sight. We repeat this a few times, with the growling getting steadily louder, until finally she hops off the couch and comes tearing around the corner to “get” me. But as soon as she gets close, she does a 180 and bounds airborne back to the couch. Lather, rinse, repeat.
We also do a modified version where I hide behind the couch and peek over the top or around the side. I can just touch her paw and make her growl like she’s gonna kill me. Really funny. 
Hmm. This link took me to a Yahoo/Flickr login page, and then the home page. When I C&P’d the link location, I got “This page is private. Oops! You don’t have permission to view this page.” 
Bessie the Labrador is fond of rowboating. She’ll get on her back, make rowing motions with all four paws and grunt rhythmically with a wild expression on her snout. Sometimes we’ll applaud appreciatively.
That’s not the weird part - it’s that when she’s done she rolls onto her feet or into a lying-down position, immediately back from whatever psychic weird place she was at with all the rowing and grunting, looking serious and a bit puzzled.
Actually, if I could get away with it I’d rowboat and grunt on my back at work. It looks like fun.
Hmm, I had the photos set to “Private,” for some reason. You should be able to see them now. Sorry 'bout that.
Awwww, Lover was cute. My Molly likes to sit on shoulders like that.
Aww, he’s a looker! I’m sure he went to a nice home. Who could resist?
My dog does this too. Not that I blame him, I’d probably do the same if I was in his position.
My cats are terrified of plastic bags, even when I open the new trash bag quietly (My usual habit is to SNAP it open, I’m afraid).
Miss Minx will sit six inches out of reach and strop her face on the nearest object instead of coming over to let me pet her. :dubious: I have no idea why.
Those are a little scary! :eek: ::shivers::
My dog wipes his face off after he eats. It drives me nuts. He wipes it on anything he can - blankets draped on the couch and chairs (sometimes he’ll do it even if a cat is on the blanket - that usually gets him a good hiss), or on the dog beds on the floor.
I suppose I could pay attention to when he is finished eating, but he never just stands still at the bowl to eat - he will take a bite and make a circuit around the dining room table, then take another bite and do another lap…so I never know when he is done, and dining can take 20 minutes or so for him.
I used to have a cat (a Himalayan) that would fetch. We’d crunch up a cellophane ball, like a cigarette pack, and toss it UP the stairs to the landing. He’d bolt after it, pick it up in his mouth, and trot downstairs to give it to us. He’d do this to the point of exhaustion!
Now we have another Himalayan cat, and he doesn’t exert himself much! He sleeps with his front paws extended straight out, like Superman flying. Or he sleeps on his back with all his paws in the air, snoring away peacefully all night.
Our new silly dog, smiles, especially when she’s in trouble.
She’s also a collector. Any toys or socks or general detritus that have been left on the floor get gathered up and placed in a pile in the living room. Nothing inappropriate gets chewed, it just all has to be in one place. We find this rather amusing. If one of the other dogs gets a toy from the pile, they may play with it, but she puts it back when they’re done.
And this isn’t my dog, but has everyone seen this hilarious sleepwalking dog video?
We live on Puget Sound. We have a dog that was relatively normal for five years. This year, she has started barking at big waves. Anytime the water gets a little rough, she goes to the beach and barks and barks until we bring her inside.
One of our dogs does that too! When she meets someone new, she smiles - which often terrifies people who think she’s about to attack them… I’ve seen vets jump about 3 feet in terror…
When we come home, she smiles too…
I like to think she’s just a happy Golden Retriever… but, then again, aren’t they all?
My rat terrier Buddy goes a happy dance. He drums his front paws rapidly and then sits and spins in a tight, fast circle, clock-wise. His counterpart, Snickers, talks a lot. “Borg” mostly, sometimes “Roo” or “Wow wow wow”.
http://viewmorepics.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=viewImage&friendID=88536684&albumID=1689675&imageID=38012483
Snicks is brown and Buddy is black
When my friend the Mad Doctor comes over to visit, we shout “Burglars Kaiko, burglars,burglars, burglars !” expecting Kaiko to go and rip out the Mad Doctor’s throat. She then goes to greet him. We have noticed that if we insert the word “burglars” or even the word “purpose” (the dog can’t tell the difference), in a normal sentence, her ears will go up. If we say "Purpose, Purpose, Purpose, she will run outside expecting to find the Mad Doctor.
My dog hunts rats, but I guess that is normal for a terrier mix. He used to do the whole run around crazy at random thing when he was younger. It was pretty impressive as he’d weave though the chairs of the dining room table, which had braces connecting all four legs and one across the middle, without slowing down. He also has to place his food on the floor before it can be eaten.
