Weird things your pets do

[Pippen]

I had a cat who would steal purple lighters. I thought they were colour blind so maybe it was a shade of gray, but it was always the purple ones that went missing. I don't know what she did with them but occasionally one would make and appearance in an odd place so maybe she was hoarding them and bringing them out to play with.

[Twik]

We had a dog once that ran an extortion racket.

About 30 minute before people were due to get up, he'd wander into your room, and start bumping the mattress with his nose. To get him to go away and let you sleep, you had to give him a treat. After he'd collected treats from everyone (except my mother, who did not negiotiate with terrierists), he would go back to bed himself. We had to train ourselves to keep dog treats on the beside table.

The odd thing was, he'd be satisified with one, even if he knew you had more. That was, to him, an adequate piece of the action.

[Outdoor Girl]

(except my mother, who did not negiotiate with terrierists

*giggle*

[bansidhe]

My geese dislike change, and get rather freaked out if I go into the garden wearing something unusual (a hat, for instance). They are also somewhat fixated on my feet. My gander Titan will attack my feet during the b.reeding season if I let him.  Apparently this is not unusual for geese.

My geese don't mind what shoes I wear, however...one day, my husband was in their enclosure filling up their wading pool when he got bored and decided to do some pushups. These geese freaked out completely, shrieking and flapping and running around the enclosure. As soon as he quit, they returned to normal. When he tried it again: another freakout.

So, no more pushups in the geese's enclosure. 

A former goose kept trying to mate with me.

[stargazer]

He also loved to climb in the dryer on top of the warm, clean clothes while she was trying to get them out.  Drove Mom crazy.  One day, he climbed in after the clothes were taken out. Mom closed the door, let him go around once and opened the door.  He took off like he was shot out of a cannon and never bothered her again when she was doing laundry.

That...is disgusting.

[cass2591]

Agree. My cat drives me crazy at times but I wouldn't purposefully abuse her because of it. How would you like it if someone put you in a dryer and let you go around once? I imagine it might be a tad uncomfortable getting banged around like that.

[TheBardess]

He also loved to climb in the dryer on top of the warm, clean clothes while she was trying to get them out.  Drove Mom crazy.  One day, he climbed in after the clothes were taken out. Mom closed the door, let him go around once and opened the door.  He took off like he was shot out of a cannon and never bothered her again when she was doing laundry.

That...is disgusting.

I have to second this. I felt sick reading that. Even if it was just "once around" that is animal abuse, plain and simple.

[nuit93]

He also loved to climb in the dryer on top of the warm, clean clothes while she was trying to get them out.  Drove Mom crazy.  One day, he climbed in after the clothes were taken out. Mom closed the door, let him go around once and opened the door.  He took off like he was shot out of a cannon and never bothered her again when she was doing laundry.

That...is disgusting.

I have to second this. I felt sick reading that. Even if it was just "once around" that is animal abuse, plain and simple.

Thirding.  That's...just not right.

[cass2591]

Move on, please.

[afbluebelle]

Agree. My cat drives me crazy at times but I wouldn't purposefully abuse her because of it. How would you like it if someone put you in a dryer and let you go around once? I imagine it might be a tad uncomfortable getting banged around like that.

Actually, it was pretty fun. I'm just glad they let me out... I saw a CSI episode about that once 

[afbluebelle]

I have no pets now, but back when my roommate had a ferret, she would hop into the shower with you. She was never a fan of the little shower cap I made for her though

[Pippen]

Oh and pet lambs. Pretty much the gold standard of awesome pets. I hadn't had one for years when I told one of my employees how much I missed them and the next days she turned up with an orphan one in a box. I named him Lamb Lamb. They can't be house trained so you have to put nappies/diapers on them but he used to go upstairs to me bedroom, turn the TV on and watch it in the dark by himself waiting for me to come to bed. Utterly destroyed my Lemon tree though.

Sheep are also a lot more ferocious than most people think and they are strong and very agile. They can be a pretty worthy opponent in the right situation. Lamb Lamb took on 3 heading dogs and sent our neighbor to hospital with a busted knee when he has caught munching on the roses.

Seriously though if you ever have the chance to have a pet lamb, grab it. They are such wonderful animals.

[Mad Goat Woman]

Pet lambs are the bane of my existence, Pippen. One of the more recent bottle-babies used to follow me everywhere-- even into the bathroom. It got to the point where it was like the stupid nursery rhyme made even worse.

My goats on the other hand, are awesome. This afternoon they decided to take themselves home when I was too slow coming to get them from their hill. Two of the... slower shall we say, does didn't come with the horde of ten, and instead were found stuck near the cattle shed. Made me laugh. But then, most of the stuff my goats do is weird.

[HoneyBee42]

I once had a cat who loved the vacuum, too.  Sam was a Siamese (we got him when his previous owners died of old age, and he was about 13 then and lived with us until his death).  Sam just loved to be vacuumed so that you'd have to vacuum him with the brush attachment in order to have any peace while you were trying to vacuum the carpets (otherwise he'd be batting at it, twining himself around your legs and otherwise making a nuisance of himself until he got what he wanted).  He didn't have any hearing problems, but I don't think the Electrolux had the greatest suction ... and it did make his coat look nice.  Sam also liked to sit on the piano bench next to me whenever I practiced.

Now I have a dog named Blue who likes to do what we call "the Snoopy".  She has a dogloo and she'll sleep in there at night time.  During the day, however, she prefers to sleep *on top* of the dogloo.  Last summer, we got her a cheap kiddie pool.  She totally hates baths (oldest son and I are in full contact wrestling mode whenever we do bathe her), but once she understood that the shampoo wasn't coming out, she liked to stand in her pool and splash.  (I got this because otherwise she'd splash out her water dish and never have any water to drink--this way she still had at least a gallon of drinking water available.)  She eventually put a hole in the bottom from one of her claws, so I'll have to get her a new one next summer, but ten bucks is cheap when it comes to keeping a dog watered and amused for a whole summer.

[sevenday]

Regarding the dog with the plastic swimming pool... We got one for my service dog for the same reason.  It rarely gets "hot" hot here, but when it does... well, there are no real dog-swimming places, so we had to make do.  He liked water, so that wasn't the problem.  Got him one of those cheap plastic ones from Walmart or something, fill it with a couple inches of water, and let him go lay in it, roll in it, etc.  Until he discovered a new toy.  One day he discovered a little garter snake in his fenced area and danced around it, barking and trying to herd it for a bit.  And then picked it up in his mouth.  Perhaps a bit startled that it kept wriggling, he accidentally dropped it into the pool (empty at that point, I hadn't refilled yet) and then ran around the pool barking as the snake wriggled around in the pool.  After about 10 minutes I scooped up the snake, inspected it - no ouchies - and gently set it free on the other side of the fence.  After that, we had to check the pool for snakes before refilling.  Found at least four more in there before that pool went to the great kiddy pool heaven - and we didn't replace it after that for various reasons.