Weird Little Things Animals Do

[CosmicHobbit]

Well, I didn't see anything like this on the forums, so I decided to make this thread. If there's already something like it, or if this can't be here for any reason, my bad.

I could be blasting dubstep/heavy metal/rap as loud as I can handle, and my 3 cats will just sleep. They don't seem to be disturbed by it at all, even though cats have very sensitive ears. It could be that they're used to how loud I play that stuff

Any other forum-goers have strange things that they've seen animals do?

[Kid Jake]

I've got a big, goofy ass pittbull that leaves me staring at him with a headache more often than not. Some of the highlights:

-Saw me making pancakes for my nieces and started begging for one. I tossed one to him and he kept crying until I cut it up like I was doing for them.

-Somehow got a neighbor's bicycle helmet on his head. Started headbutting everything in sight until we wrestled it off of him.

-Absolutely hates the 'other dog' in the mirror and constantly tries to steal 'its' toys, while getting enraged that it's trying to take his.

-Once peed on a stick and then took the dry end of the stick in his mouth and chased us with the wet end. I seriously doubt he had the intelligence to actually plan it that way, but it sure as hell looked like he knew what he was doing.

-Won't let me pet him anymore, although demands constant love from everyone else, BUT refuses to let me out of his sight. If I'm inside, he has to be inside; if I'm outside he has to be out; if I'm in the bathroom then his nose can be seen under the door peeking at me like a stalker.

He even sleeps where I sleep. If I'm on the couch then he's on the floor next to me; if I'm in bed then he's laying across my feet. I figured it was just a comfort thing, but my GF mentioned that the nights that for one reason or another I can't get home that he just crawls into his crate to go to sleep and spends the day waiting near the door.

[Resileaf]

My cat knows that doorknobs are used to open doors, so whenever she wants me to open the bathroom door to let her out (because she insists on following me), she'll reach for the doorknob like she wants to open it herself.

[Glorthindel]

My cat knows that doorknobs are used to open doors, so whenever she wants me to open the bathroom door to let her out (because she insists on following me), she'll reach for the doorknob like she wants to open it herself.

One of my neighbours cats frequently walks over to me after I've parked my car, meows, then walks to its front door, looks at the door, looks at me and meows again, looks at the door, then looks at me, etc. It clearly understands "humans open the door", but obviously doesn't get that we can't (or rather shouldn't!) open other humans doors.

[Crow]

One of our chickens has to be the first to drink the new water when we switch it out. She'll drop everything and come running over for the new water, even if the water she had was already clean.

[truemane]

I have a snake that likes baths. He'll crawl into his water dish and curl up and just hang out in his little day-spa all day and all night. And he's a great big, dangerous-looking all-black snake so it always strikes me funny seeing him just lounging in the pool.

Spoiler: WARNING! PICTURE OF SNAKE!

Show

My other snake is a juveline and she shakes her tail when she feels threatened, as though it were a rattlesnake's tail. It's a common behaviour in her species. But when she's in her little feeding enclosure in mid-eat she's hyper-hyper sensitive to movement and sound and so my wife and I can start talking halfway across the room and we'll hear her little tail vibrating against the side of the container and we're all like, "You're fine, Eris, we're all the way over here. Eat your mouse." But she's so smol, you see, and we're very scary.

We have a cat that, like all cats I guess, does all manner of eccentric thing. One of my favourites is that she knows when it's bedtime. If 10:30 or so comes and we're still watching TV she'll go in the bedroom and start yowling. HUMANS! BED! I GET SNUGGLES NOW!

And she won't lie down on skin. If I'm wearing pants and sit with my feet up she'll lie down my legs all stretched out. But if I'm wearing shorts she just curls up on my stomach.

Animals are great. I love them.

[Ninja_Prawn]

When my cat sees a flying insect in the house, she always calls out to me - she's got a specific meow for it that she doesn't use for anything else. Then she'll sit there staring at the insect until I come and deal with it.

[Mith]

I get up much earlier than needed in part to cuddle with my cat before I leave for the day. It makes him feel loved enough that he doesn't log cuddle hours at 1:00am anymore.

If I am at my table or desk, or the only person home and sitting at the main table, he hops up on the table. If anyone else is around, he is not up on the dinner table.

[Ninja_Prawn]

on the table

Heh. I have never been able to persuade mine to keep off the dinner table. For some reason though, she has been able to learn not to go on my office desk and the kitchen counter.

One really cute thing she does, is when the whole family is over for Christmas dinner (and only then), she'll sit at the table *on a chair* and eat scraps from a plate. Any other day she'd be up on the tabletop but, for Christmas, she sits on a chair. It's crazy.

[tomandtish]

Our Boston Terrier HAS to sleep under some form of cover. Sheet in summertime or blanket in winter, but he refuses to sleep until he's completely covered.

[Mith]

Heh. I have never been able to persuade mine to keep off the dinner table. For some reason though, she has been able to learn not to go on my office desk and the kitchen counter.

One really cute thing she does, is when the whole family is over for Christmas dinner (and only then), she'll sit at the table *on a chair* and eat scraps from a plate. Any other day she'd be up on the tabletop but, for Christmas, she sits on a chair. It's crazy.

I have the bad habit of letting my cat clean my plate after I have finished with it. This is because I have a more laisse faire attitude with cats than dogs, and since he likes to sit beside me when I eat anyways, having a routine where he gets to see if there is anything he likes keeps him relatively behaved. So as I get closer to finishing my plate, he starts purring, and gets louder until I hand him the empty plate.

The exception is salmon. I have to fight him for that. And when I am finished, he props himself in my lap so that I cradle him, and then expects me to hand feed him. I did that once when he was younger and he hasn't forgotten.

[Samba Mentality]

I have a snake that likes baths. He'll crawl into his water dish and curl up and just hang out in his little day-spa all day and all night. And he's a great big, dangerous-looking all-black snake so it always strikes me funny seeing him just lounging in the pool.

My dog, when he was small enough, used to curl up in his water bowl. It was the funniest thing until he got out and soaked the whole house.

[farothel]

Back when I was little we had a cat at home and once a week my mother would bring home some sort of treat for her (some kidney, or heart). But it would be my dad who would cut it up in little chunks. The cat would leave my mother alone, but she clearly knew what had been bought, because as soon as she heard our car (about half a block away, we lived in a very quiet neighbourhood) she would be at the back door and when my dad came in, he had to be very careful or he would trip over the cat. And he had to go in a side room with the door closed to cut it up or he would cut her nose off.

And if it was too much, she would guard the rest, afraid that we would take it away even though we never did.

[Algeh]

Annabelle, our previous basset hound, would sing along whenever we had live music in the house (singing, playing piano, and playing violin would all do it - I no longer remember what all else we tried). Sadly, she was generally not in the correct key...

She also learned lots and lots of words. She learned how to make a series of noises that could be generously interpreted as "green beans", and while she couldn't say "trivia" if she heard one of us say it she'd start an immediate campaign to be allowed to come along to the pub so she could play too. (I'd take her sometimes - trivia was on a dog-friendly outside patio. It was in a trendy urban neighborhood nowhere near where I lived but where my group of friends would meet up, so it would be all of these high-strung tiny city dogs and Annabelle, the laid-back basset. They'd yip at her and she'd fall asleep.)

I used to dog-sit for a chihuahua that would wrap herself up completely in a blanket when she slept. Her owners didn't mention this to me, so I was a bit panicked the first morning when I couldn't find the dog and there appeared to be nothing but a blanket in her bed.

[Velaryon]

Due to a combination of a strong curious streak and me being too lenient when she was a kitten, my cat likes a lot of human foods, including some that are not good for her. One thing that's funny though is, she likes Pringles. I don't have them often, but when I pop the top off a jar of Pringles, she'll come trotting from anywhere in the apartment and immediately try to steal one out of there. I have seen her go shoulder deep into a jar of Pringles to try and get the very last chip. And if she does, she carries it off somewhere and licks all the salt off of it until the chip is damp enough to fold in half from the pressure of her licking it.

When my cat sees a flying insect in the house, she always calls out to me - she's got a specific meow for it that she doesn't use for anything else. Then she'll sit there staring at the insect until I come and deal with it.

My kitty has started doing something like this too. She usually just indicates it through body language at first, but if I'm not paying attention she'll speak up to make sure I know it's there.

[Mith]

I've got a big, goofy ass pittbull that leaves me staring at him with a headache more often than not. Some of the highlights:

-Saw me making pancakes for my nieces and started begging for one. I tossed one to him and he kept crying until I cut it up like I was doing for them.

-Somehow got a neighbor's bicycle helmet on his head. Started headbutting everything in sight until we wrestled it off of him.

-Absolutely hates the 'other dog' in the mirror and constantly tries to steal 'its' toys, while getting enraged that it's trying to take his.

-Once peed on a stick and then took the dry end of the stick in his mouth and chased us with the wet end. I seriously doubt he had the intelligence to actually plan it that way, but it sure as hell looked like he knew what he was doing.

-Won't let me pet him anymore, although demands constant love from everyone else, BUT refuses to let me out of his sight. If I'm inside, he has to be inside; if I'm outside he has to be out; if I'm in the bathroom then his nose can be seen under the door peeking at me like a stalker.

He even sleeps where I sleep. If I'm on the couch then he's on the floor next to me; if I'm in bed then he's laying across my feet. I figured it was just a comfort thing, but my GF mentioned that the nights that for one reason or another I can't get home that he just crawls into his crate to go to sleep and spends the day waiting near the door.

I forgot to mention I love this dog already.

[halfeye]

I forgot to mention I love this dog already.

Yeah, staffies are awesome. The dog intelligence test thing is about the quickness to learn obedience tests, which is fair enough in some ways, but when a dog is disobedient without being malicious, that doesn't mean it's unintelligent.

[Mith]

Yeah, staffies are awesome. The dog intelligence test thing is about the quickness to learn obedience tests, which is fair enough in some ways, but when a dog is disobedient without being malicious, that doesn't mean it's unintelligent.

As someone who had a pet goat, I take non malicious disobddience as more a sign of intelligence in a "I know what you want me to do, but why should I listen to you?" sort of way.

My main reason for being a fan of staffies is that I like thier bulk. I had three dogs growing up and we would sometimes pile up in some straw, so I would be at the bottom of a heap of dogs. A staffie gets the same sort of weight with just one dog. I found that out at a stress therapy dog event at university one year.

[Kid Jake]

I forgot to mention I love this dog already.

Lol, he's grown on me too. I didn't even want him at first, but my sister begged him off of her bf (who raises them) when he was barely 8 weeks so that her kid could have a dog and then just sort of left him with me while she 'got stuff ready for him' and forgot about him. So now he's my Buddy.

On the subject of intelligence, I've never tried to train a dog before but he does seem to pick stuff up super quick; he just has this mischevious energy to him. Like you can see the gears turning in his head while he weighs the benefits of 'being a good boy' and getting treats/pet vs being an a-hole and grabbing the remote/car keys/my niece's toy and gleefully making us chase him to get it back.

[Keltest]

Lol, he's grown on me too. I didn't even want him at first, but my sister begged him off of her bf (who raises them) when he was barely 8 weeks so that her kid could have a dog and then just sort of left him with me while she 'got stuff ready for him' and forgot about him. So now he's my Buddy.

On the subject of intelligence, I've never tried to train a dog before but he does seem to pick stuff up super quick; he just has this mischevious energy to him. Like you can see the gears turning in his head while he weighs the benefits of 'being a good boy' and getting treats/pet vs being an a-hole and grabbing the remote/car keys/my niece's toy and gleefully making us chase him to get it back.

My dog is like that too. And, oddly, I also ended up taking care of her because my sister really wanted a dog, and when we got her as a puppy she never really ended up doing anything with her.

[farothel]

On the subject of intelligence, I've never tried to train a dog before but he does seem to pick stuff up super quick; he just has this mischevious energy to him. Like you can see the gears turning in his head while he weighs the benefits of 'being a good boy' and getting treats/pet vs being an a-hole and grabbing the remote/car keys/my niece's toy and gleefully making us chase him to get it back.

Being an a-hole and having people play with you (by the chasing). What dog wouldn't take that every day?

[Sinewmire]

We have pet rats, and the different personalities of the rats, and between the males and females is constantly entertaining.

Little Juan, for example, loves coming out of the cage, but due to illness, she usually comes out for medicine, which she hates. When I go to bring her out, she's super excited, then halfway remembers the medicine issue and freaks out, trying to crab bars or hammocks and whathaveyou - you can tell in her little face that she's rumbled us.

Generally the girls are twitchier and more explorative, and like to climb on people, especially running up arms and chests to sit on shoulders like parrots, whereas the boys are just big dopy lumps, who tend to slide off things with an expression of sheepish surprise.

Misery used to suffer from respiratory tract issues, so I used to get her the odd treat of dark chocolate, which helps rats to prevent UTIs. She now intentionally snuffles like Darth Vader whenever I pick her up. At no other time does she snuffle.

[Wookieetank]

Dogs
-One of my dogs has adopted one of my daughter's stuffed goats as his baby. He'll happily play fetch with it, but if he thinks you're going to hurt it, he grabs the goat, runs off with it, and hides it.

-Another dog of mine likes to kill her dry dog food. She'll bring a piece into the living room, toss it around, pounce on it a few times and then eat it. She'll do this for like 20-30 mins at a time as she eats her food one piece at a time.

-My third dog likes to wear clothes. He always has to have some sort of shirt or whatever on. When you go to change his clothes, no matter how short of a time he's "naked', he'll pour on abandoned at the pound levels of mope at you until he's re-clothed.

Rabbits
-Growing up I had a rabbit who would play with our dog at the time. They'd race each other around the backyard, and knock each other over while running. Its quite the show watching a bunny send a dog 4 times its size rolling across the yard.

-One bunny I had got super sick, so he was getting a lot of extra attention and care. Fell asleep on the couch cuddling with him at one point. Woke up to find the ill bunny guarding me from my 3 dogs who were all lined up on the floor in a row.

Guinea Pigs
-Had a guinea pig a few years back that got nicknamed ninja pig, cause she was a master at escaping her cage and getting into places she shouldn't. One time she disappeared for 2 hours before we found her holed up under the fridge. Another time she somehow got on the 2nd shelf of our bookshelf and fell asleep on top of the books.

-Same GP also liked to swim. She had gotten all messy from getting into something, so the wife and I put her in the bathtub. She headed straight towards the deep end and just started paddling around. We ended up filling up the tub a bit more and she started doing labs of the whole tub, just zooming around.

[Palanan]

My cat fights me for the papasan, and she fights dirty.

The papasan is our mutual favorite item of furniture, and it’s a constant cold war for possession. My cat uses every trick in her repertoire, from Bambi Eyes to Cunning Misdirection. Her favorite tactic, when I won’t let her jump into it directly, is to jump onto the shelf behind it, then come down on the top and creep around the upper edge. Once she’s on the edge, she uses her Gravity Lock ability to resist all attempts to push her off.

She can spend all day on the master bed in perfect comfort, but the moment she hears me sit down, there she is, with a craving for the papasan as deep as all the oceans. If I leave for ninety seconds, it’s a sure thing she’ll be sitting there when I get back, as smoothly composed as if she’d been there for hours—and with every expectation of being there for hours more.

It does not matter that I worked to earn the money to buy that papasan. It does not matter that I bought it three years before she was born. All that matters is that she wants it, by any means necessary, as her natural right.

I’m typing this at my desk. At this moment, my cat is curled up in the papasan with an expression of bliss.

[Gravitron5000]

Annabelle, our previous basset hound, would sing along whenever we had live music in the house (singing, playing piano, and playing violin would all do it - I no longer remember what all else we tried). Sadly, she was generally not in the correct key...

Our basset hound, Carling, would also sing along while I practised playing the saxophone. Not only was she not on key, but she had no sense of rhythm either. Total amateur, but she loved the sound of her voice.

She would also grumble like and angsty teenager whenever we told her off. She always had to have the last word.

We had to fence our garden in, as otherwise she would dig up the carrots and potatoes. The carrots would be eaten, but the potatoes were just a tasty toy that she would throw and then chase around the yard. Watching her pick the raspberries (which we did not fence up as I was the only one who would eat them, so there were plenty to share), was adorable. She was clumsy at everything else, tripping on her ears, running sideways as her back legs could run faster than her front, etc ..., but she was a careful precise machine when it came to plucking raspberries from the bush with her big old basset head.

Most hilariously, when we took her to obedience school, they taught us to hold her down (gently, but firmly) to show that we are above her in the pecking order. One day, she stood on her hind legs and held my mom down as she was sitting on the couch. My mom couldn't get up as she knew what the dog was trying to do, but could not stop laughing, because in all honesty it was pretty hilarious. From that day onward, this brilliant idiot of a dog would take all commands from my mom as a suggestion, only to be acted on if there were treats involved.

Dang, I miss that dog.

[Brighteyes]

We have a feather toy that hangs off a stick at paw level, and very calmly and sedately, our cat will sit down in front of it and, slowly, paw at it while staring at me on the couch. She will do this continuously for long stretches of time. If I talk to her, she pauses with her paw in the air, and then will resume after I stop talking.

[Honest Tiefling]

I used to live near a couple that had a basset hound named Bob. We called him Bob Barker, but not in front of them.

He too, loved to sing but was deaf. And he loved to sing in the early morning on the street in front of his house. Now, before you think the owners were irresponsible, it was a one lane street that was annoying to navigate, and he lived nearly at the very end, so only four families were ever going to use the road.

The problem was that he insisted on holding concert early in the morning when I needed to go to school and honking the horn at him did nothing. It was awkward to explain that I was nearly late because we had to chase the dog back into the owner's yard but he didn't really feel the need to walk very fast.

[veti]

This is a story about wild animals, rather than pets:

In one town where I used to work, I'd drive to work along part of a ring road at a fairly steady speed of about 40 mph. It was a pleasant enough stretch, flanked by trees on both sides.

Most of the time, this was as boring as it sounds. But for a brief while - one spring, for maybe six weeks or more, there were the Pigeons.

To start, they'd lurk at the roadside and launch themselves up at approaching cars. Not away from them, but *at* them. Then flap like crazy to lift themselves up at the last moment, and pass right over the car in its slipstream. Sometimes they almost touched the windscreen, sometimes there was no 'almost' about it.

After a while, they changed the rules. Then they'd launch themselves out of the trees and dive at us, only to pull up as before at the very last moment.

Eventually I came to the conclusion that it must be some kind of pigeon extreme sport. Maybe they were daring each other, or competing to see who could skim the most cars in a morning. Sometimes people try to tell me that the concept of sport and thrill-seeking is a uniquely human trait - but I just assume those people have never been grazed by an adrenaline-junkie pigeon.

[Mith]

This is a story about wild animals, rather than pets:

In one town where I used to work, I'd drive to work along part of a ring road at a fairly steady speed of about 40 mph. It was a pleasant enough stretch, flanked by trees on both sides.

Most of the time, this was as boring as it sounds. But for a brief while - one spring, for maybe six weeks or more, there were the Pigeons.

To start, they'd lurk at the roadside and launch themselves up at approaching cars. Not away from them, but *at* them. Then flap like crazy to lift themselves up at the last moment, and pass right over the car in its slipstream. Sometimes they almost touched the windscreen, sometimes there was no 'almost' about it.

After a while, they changed the rules. Then they'd launch themselves out of the trees and dive at us, only to pull up as before at the very last moment.

Eventually I came to the conclusion that it must be some kind of pigeon extreme sport. Maybe they were daring each other, or competing to see who could skim the most cars in a morning. Sometimes people try to tell me that the concept of sport and thrill-seeking is a uniquely human trait - but I just assume those people have never been grazed by an adrenaline-junkie pigeon.

I would never have thought pigeons would do that either. Corvids are too smart for those sort of sports. They go snowboarding instead

[farothel]

This is a story about wild animals, rather than pets:

In one town where I used to work, I'd drive to work along part of a ring road at a fairly steady speed of about 40 mph. It was a pleasant enough stretch, flanked by trees on both sides.

Most of the time, this was as boring as it sounds. But for a brief while - one spring, for maybe six weeks or more, there were the Pigeons.

To start, they'd lurk at the roadside and launch themselves up at approaching cars. Not away from them, but *at* them. Then flap like crazy to lift themselves up at the last moment, and pass right over the car in its slipstream. Sometimes they almost touched the windscreen, sometimes there was no 'almost' about it.

After a while, they changed the rules. Then they'd launch themselves out of the trees and dive at us, only to pull up as before at the very last moment.

Eventually I came to the conclusion that it must be some kind of pigeon extreme sport. Maybe they were daring each other, or competing to see who could skim the most cars in a morning. Sometimes people try to tell me that the concept of sport and thrill-seeking is a uniquely human trait - but I just assume those people have never been grazed by an adrenaline-junkie pigeon.

I've seen this happen as well. Once I was driving on the highway a pigeon came towards my car, veered off and then suddenly went in front of the car. The next thing I saw was a cloud of feathers in my rearview mirror.