Your pet's "quirks"

[Outdoor Girl]

One of the cats we had growing up, Tuffy, was a real character.  We had a screened in porch with a kitty flap so we'd only have to open one door.  To let us know he wanted in, he'd jump at the screen door and hang off the screen.  You'd open the door, he'd drop to the ground and mosey in.  Sometimes you had to shake the door to get him to drop.  This is the same cat that liked to ride the ATC with my Dad.  He'd sit on the seat in front of Dad with his paws on the handlebars and ride down from the bush to the house.

Dumb as a box of rocks, though.  He'd climb a tree and then get stuck because he couldn't figure out how to get down.  Then he'd try to come down forwards, like a squirrel.  Ummm... Dummy, your claws don't work when you come down head first.  He'd sit on the tray of the bird feeder, expecting them to land right beside him.  Or he'd be on the branch above the hanging feeder, hanging on with three feet and swinging with the fourth.  If we'd had video of that, we could have won $10,000, I'm sure.

[Amara]

When I was growing up we had a St. Bernard dog. While she was a puppy we also got a kitten. Becky used to watch the kitten bathe herself and learned to do so. It was hilarious to see a 75-pound St. Bernard delicately wash her paws the most cat-like way.

[Dr. F.]

Ariel is the only dog I've ever known who has a favorite color. She loves everything pink. Pink toys, pink clothes, pink everything. It's amazing.

One of my former foster dogs was a stray Chihuahua pulled out of an LA shelter at the last possible moment. The boy was an absolute clothes hound. You walked into a room with doggie clothes? He wanted to try them on. He had favorites and ones he didn't much care for, but any clothes were better than being naked. Ironically, he was adopted by a fashion editor, and now supposedly has a bigger wardrobe than she does. I believe he's been in a few photo shoots as well. He's adapted to living in a penthouse quite well, though he originally wasn't sure about elevators.

Shortly after I took my first faculty position, I adopted two long-haired black kittens (they showed up in my front yard at about 6 weeks of age). The science library was about 2 blocks from where I was living at the time. This was in the days before universal internet access to journals, so about once  a week, I'd walk down to the library. Every time, the cats would join me, one on either side of me, about a stride in front of me, loping along with tails straight up in the air. It looked for all the world like I had a feline honor guard. Since the road I walked along was a fairly major campus thoroughfare, this attracted no little attention. They wouldn't cross the thoroughfare (good kitties!), but would wait for me on the other side till I came out of the library, and then would escort me home.

[rachellenore]

I have three cats, each gotten a year apart, all spayed girls who were rescues. The eldest is a brown domestic short hair with green eyes named Freja, the middle girl is a black Siamese with yellow eyes named Frigg, and the youngest is a white and blue tabby with pale green eyes named Fenris.

Freja was a feral rescue and is still pretty aggressive when handled wrong. She also loves to play rough and will try to lure us into wrestling with her. She'll sprawl out on her back and expose her belly, and if we go to pet it, she will clamp down on us with all four paws and start chewing on whatever flesh she's caught. She is also the resident box lover and will squeeze herself into every box she finds, even if she doesn't really fit.

Frigg is a Siamese so she is extremely talkative. My husband and I swear she has meowed the words "Oh my God," before, and she also says "Mom" sometimes. She is my little ninja, she is sooooo fast when she chases the laser pointer. She also loves to chatter at the laser pointer louder and more frequently than the others. She is crazy affectionate and will sleep in my arms like a stuffed animal.

Fenris is our pirate cat, she loves to perch on your shoulder like a parrot - unfortunately for us, she weighs considerably more than a parrot. She especially loves to jump on your back when you're sitting on the toilet. She is also our only cat to jump INTO the toilet. She also frequently falls in the bathtub when it's full of water. She's also our nibbler, instead of kneading, she likes to purr and nibble on your fingers.

I love my cats. They always brighten my day and I can't imagine life without cats from this point on.

[LadyJaneinMD]

I can help with one of the mysteries!

Cats can't see the water in their bowls very well, so they tap the bowl or jiggle it, or stick their paws in it to make the water move.  That's why so many cats dip their paws in and lick them off.  My Rita is a jiggler. 

Rita is a tortie, and she's also a talker!  She carries on whole conversations with my friend Helen over the phone! I put the phone on speaker and hold it up for Rita:

Rita: Meow!
Helen: Hello Rita!
R: mrrp!
H: and what is Jane doing to you today?
R: meow!
H: No!  Well, tell her to clean your box right now!
R: meow!

and so on....Helen is the only one she talks to like that, too.  I have no idea why. They've only met in person 3 or 4 times now.

We have this little morning routine:  I get up and go to the shower, while she curls up in the warm spot that I left behind.  When I get out, I start getting dressed, but I have to make the bed so she won't fur up the whole sheet set (I'm allergic).   So I flip the sheet and blankets over her head, then turn down a corner to let her back out, and she gripes at me loudly, while grudgingly moving to the top of the blanket and curling back up in the Same Spot.  This is usually accompanied by a flick of claw or a quick bite.
Every morning, this happens.  You'd think she'd learn, but nope......every single morning.....

[SiotehCat]

I have a girl cat, B.b., who will start stroking your head with her paws when you are laying down.

She starts by rubbing and smelling your scalp, then starts touching it. I love this because it feels so good. After about a minute of doing this, she starts frantically trying to dig a hole in your head. If you can handle that, then she tries to bite her way to your brain. The first half of this is very soothing, but the second half is very painful.

She is my DH's biggest fan, so she follows him everywhere. If he is playing video games, she will reach up and start tapping on his head.

When my DH is trying to put me to sleep by rubbing my head, she will come up and move herself right under his hand so that he is rubbing her instead.

[BeagleMommy]

The Beagle sings with me every day when I come home from work.  He practically dances until we sing.  I will sing scales and he responds by baying.  He will only do it with me.  If DH or DS try he looks at them like "You're doing it WRONG!".

He will also do what we call the Little Beggar Dog Dance.  If we're eating something he wants he will sit on his hind legs with his front paws bent in front.  He will then wave the front paws up and down until you cave.

My late kitty Miss Bitsy Kitty would make "sock babies".  When DS was a baby she would steal his baby socks and carry them around the house in her mouth.  Every week I would find three or four "sock babies" under the sofa.

My mother's cat Millie dumps her water bowl onto the floor and watches the stream of water run across the floor until it reaches the refrigerator.  Then she tries to stop it.

[Sheila Take a Bow]

My brother's dog will do a happy dance for me, and only for me.  If she thinks I have a treat for her (which usually means I have something in my hand, am holding my hand in a way that there might be something in it, or am vaguely near a treat or something resembling a treat), she will get up on her hind legs and spin in a circle.

She does not do this around my brother or sister in law.

Of course, the dog may be the one who's trained me, because when she does her little dance and I don't have a treat in my hand, I feel bad that she went to all the effort and I give her a treat.  My brother and sister and law are constantly amazed at how well the dog has trained me.

[athersgeo]

I think all my pets have been made up entirely of quirks over the years. Some of the highlights...

-Cleo (the cat who adopted us, rather than the other way around) was smart enough to twig that if she couldn't make the litter box downstairs, the bathroom was the place to, uh, go - generally right by the bath plug hole, too, which made cleaning up significantly easier!
-Jessie (adopted rescue cat) was such an aqua-phobe that if you so much as turned the bath taps on in her presence, she'd shoot you this utterly betrayed look. She was also a bit of a hunter and, in the traditional way of cats, used to make presentations to us...of dead moths. She never got the hang of prey any bigger than that, but she'd look so PROUD of herself for having caught us some moths!
-Felix (adopted rescue cat) was a half-siamese tuxedo was a climber (within half an hour of being home with us she'd gone round the living room twice without touching the floor!) who, when nothing else presented itself, would climb you! You could then walk around with her perched on your shoulder... She would also quite happily sleep with her head pressed up against the hotwater pipes and we could never have left her unsupervised with an open fire... Lastly, she was a talker (like many siamese cats). She could never come into a room quietly and you could happily have entire conversations with her. However her piece-de-resistance was what she did if she was in the room when someone started yelling: she'd join in, at the top of her voice. It was a VERY effective way of shutting down arguments!
-Oddy (adopted rescue cat) who is just utterly dim. Extremely cute (fortunately) but completely dim. He falls off things and walks into things on quite a regular basis; he also cannot get the hang of opening doors and so sits beside them scratching at them which (depending on the way the door swings) shuts them even further.
-Whatsit (not our cat but clearly things he ought to be) who isn't actually that much smarter than Oddy. He actually lives across the road from us, but is extremely fond of our doorstep and, if we don't watch out, he will nip in for a seripticious nibble on Oddy's food and then a quick kip on my bed! I'd almost swear our own idiot's rolled out the welcome mat...

[crella]

They all sound wonderful!

[staceym]

I have a male cockapoo - Toby - the love of my life

I believe someone mentioned that their dog sneezes to talk - Toby does too; to me it is hysterical; he will shake his little head and sneeze like to answer when I ask if he wants out; or wants a cookie

and he also smiles - I know a lot of people say their dogs smile; but Toby is the only dog I have had to actualy do a teething bearing smile - it brightens my day when I come home and he meets me all wiggly and teeth bearing

he LOVES!!!! tissues - whether it is paper towels, tisses, toilet tissue or napkins.  He is a stealth tissue stealer; so you have to be careful to keep them out of his way.  The greatest memory of this I have was when he was a puppy - I had a packet of pocket tissues on my night stand - now I knew to not keep tissues on the night stand but I didn't think he would know what was in the packet.  Anyway, that morning I was getting dressed and I turned my head for a sec and then I see him all of a sudden prancing across the bed with the packet hanging out of his mouth - oh my I just laughed and thought he was the cutest thing 

and it amazes me that he actually thinks - like at night when I'm getting ready for bed, he will lie in the middle of the bed, then the minute I'm done and start toward the bed, he gets up and moves to the foot of the bed; as he knows I'm getting in and making room for me.  Or, if he sitting on the stairs, he is sitting in the middle of the stairs, but when I start coming down the stairs, instead of him getting up and going down, he just moves over on the stair as to make room to let me pass.

[Outdoor Girl]

She would also quite happily sleep with her head pressed up against the hotwater pipes and we could never have left her unsupervised with an open fire...

Not mine but friends...  I've known so many cats that like to sleep under the wood stove!  I always wonder how their fur doesn't burst into flame fromt he heat.

[athersgeo]

She would also quite happily sleep with her head pressed up against the hotwater pipes and we could never have left her unsupervised with an open fire...

Not mine but friends...  I've known so many cats that like to sleep under the wood stove!  I always wonder how their fur doesn't burst into flame fromt he heat.

See, *under* I can kind of get - you get radiated heat but you're not actually pressed up against the hot surface (assuming, of course, that the space under the stove is big enough for that!). Felix used to literally put her head on a pipe that was far too hot for us mere humans to touch and sleep like that for a couple of hours. You'd think she'd have done herself damage, but...the fact that she lived to seventeen (approximately) rather argues against that!

I think it was Felix's lifetime regret that we never followed through on my father's suggestion of moving to somewhere with an aga. She'd have LOVED that.

[blue2000]

-Oddy (adopted rescue cat) who is just utterly dim. Extremely cute (fortunately) but completely dim. He falls off things and walks into things on quite a regular basis; he also cannot get the hang of opening doors and so sits beside them scratching at them which (depending on the way the door swings) shuts them even further.

My Burmese,  Pris, is almost frighteningly sharp at times but has never gotten the hang of doors. She will sit at a half-open door and paw at it and cry because she thinks there is not enough room for her to pass through. It might be because she is partially blind, but she can jump and climb without any trouble, so I don't know why going through a door is a big deal.

OTOH, her completely non-athletic, chubby-butt brother can muscle open anything that isn't shut tight. Sometimes she will wait for him to go out the door and follow close behind him because she knows he can get through!

[Nikko-chan]

I have a girl cat, B.b., who will start stroking your head with her paws when you are laying down.

She starts by rubbing and smelling your scalp, then starts touching it. I love this because it feels so good. After about a minute of doing this, she starts frantically trying to dig a hole in your head. If you can handle that, then she tries to bite her way to your brain. The first half of this is very soothing, but the second half is very painful.

Oh I know the feeling! My late mika kitty did the same. It was painful but it made me laugh. Often when she was a young cat you would hear the following come from my bedroom at night "*giggle* (as she stroked my head and licked it) *more giggling, getting louder* (she's rubbing against me and rolling about) Ow! (she has just pulled my hair...) *outright laughing now* Mika, stop that! OW! Don't! Stop! Ow! (she has just given me all Five Pointy Ends. Right in the scalp)."