Pet behavior that is...flat WEIRD.

[AGBF]

We had a dog, Ursa, who has since gone on to the great meadow in the sky. Ursa was a retriever mix and was a deep rich brown with fairly long hair (thus the name Ursa). She would steal bread - but only fresh french baguettes. Generally, she didn't steal food, and would not think of trying to reach up to the counter to get whatever. But if there was fresh baguette (which, at the time, there was almost every day), all rules out the window. The first few times, she would eat it. But after a while, she would disappear out in the yard with it. I always figured to eat it in guilty privacy.

One day, I was gardening as I did on a regular basis and dug up a rock. An odd rock. Quite light, actually. Looked like a dirt covered rock, but like it was made of styrofoam because it was so light. Yup, the bread.

I soon found these "rocks" all over the yard. She was saving her little treasures for the future until I had to come along and dig them up... When I would show them to her to see if perhaps she would want to rebury or play with them, she would look at them, then look at me in a completely blase, uncomprehending way, as if to say "what, am I supposed to know what that is or why its there?" and then turn around and walk away...

Thank you for starting this thread. I had completely forgotten about the "french bread fetish" - as we called it- until today and it is a very happy memory to remember her by.

minousbijoux-

That is a magnificent story! Thank you so much for sharing it. I really can't remember being so charmed by a real life dog story. It just sounds so absolutely real and like what any sensible dog who loves baguettes would do! Lovely!

Hugs,
Deb

 

[Gypsy]

Part Retriever I think. My Sheila used to do a version of this. But inside the house with small kicknacks, it was funny.

 

[Laughinggravy0]

Ginger, the collecting thing is odd. Molls is a spaniel so wants to retrieve and carry things, preferably dead birds. But she doesn't get any dead birds, so she has to make do with slippers...

She'll hunt frantically around for a slipper to offer you when you come in, unless she hears you coming, in which case she sits in her basket with a slipper in her mouth, tail thumping frantically. Drop dead cute.

 

[zoebartlett]

We have two cats. Our female cat licks the top and side of my husband's head. We figure she thinks of him as a big cat and so she's taking care of him by giving him a bath. I swear she's making him go bald but she won't stop and my husband lets her do it.

Our male cat LOVES to lick reusable grocery store-type shopping bags. You know, the cheapo, fake canvas ones. We have one in our bedroom with books in it and if we can't find him in the house, we know to look there. Nine times out of ten, he's sitting there, licking away.

 

[Matata]

One of my cats hates fresh fruit. Whenever I put fruit in the fruit bowl, he dances around it hissing and growling and serval-slapping it until he thinks he has gained its submission to his authority. My bananas are always bruised and apples have mushy parts due to his exuberant attempt to subdue the intruders.

 

[Gypsy]

Ginger, the collecting thing is odd. Molls is a spaniel so wants to retrieve and carry things, preferably dead birds. But she doesn't get any dead birds, so she has to make do with slippers...

She'll hunt frantically around for a slipper to offer you when you come in, unless she hears you coming, in which case she sits in her basket with a slipper in her mouth, tail thumping frantically. Drop dead cute.

OMG. I think that is the cutest dog story and photo combo I've heard of. Lookit those EYES! Such a little love!

 

[Gypsy]

One of my cats hates fresh fruit. Whenever I put fruit in the fruit bowl, he dances around it hissing and growling and serval-slapping it until he thinks he has gained its submission to his authority. My bananas are always bruised and apples have mushy parts due to his exuberant attempt to subdue the intruders.

That's awesome. Seriously.

 

[Gypsy]

My Merlin (to be fair, he's not very bright) goes into the office and YOWLS like he's afraid he's been abandoned. When he does it my husband and I sing, in tune with the yowling "all alonnnnnnnnne, I'm allllllllllllll alone!". And then we call him and he RUNS back into the living room SO RELIEVED as if he's been found and saved. Does this every other night or so.

And then there is the bathtub staring. He takes turns in our bathroom and one of the guest bathrooms. He sits in each for alike an HOUR staring at the wall, just tilting his head this way and that. When he gets access to the bathroom in the guest room he does it there too. For hours. It made my husband and I so paranoid we thought we had something in the walls he could hear. But when he expanded out to all the bathrooms in the house, we've decided it's just him.

White cat in a tub.

 

[Haven]

I can't get enough of this thread!

Gypsy--I'm laughing so hard at your story about tub kitty. That is awesome--standing there with his little head cocked to the side. AH! I love it. Our cat Vince often stares at things we can't see, we always get a bit spooked and figure he's seeing a ghost or something. Once all three of the cats watched something move around our bedroom for like five minutes, and eventually my husband got up and was all, 'That's it! I can't take this shit! These cats are freaking me out!" We told ourselves it was just a bug.

Matata--Anti-fruit kitty is hilarious! I really want to see a video of that!

Zoe--Licky kitties! Hahahahaha! I cannot get enough of these stories.

LaughingGravy--That face! That face! TOO precious! Our pit does something similar when we come home. She grabs one of her toys in her mouth and sits in her waiting spot, thumping her tail. If one of us is home, she'll grab her toy and do what we call her "happy dance" in whatever room we're in, waiting for the other to come through the door.

I have more to share. One of Bailee's nicknames is "Wedge" because she loves to wedge herself into small spaces, especially when we're napping. I often wake up to find her firmly wedged between me and the sofa. Example:


I found a good picture of Bailee's "It's on!" face when she's trying to get us to play hide and seek with her. We were in the car, so clearly we couldn't play, but that didn't stop her from trying. (ETA: Don't worry, we don't dress her up very often. We were on our way home from the Reindog Parade at the Botanic Garden. She was one of the few Jewish pups there, all adorable in her little blue sweater.)

 

[manderz]

My cat licks the bottom of our shower. His water bowl could be fresh and icy-cool, not 2 feet away, but he would prefer to lick the shower floor for his water. He also creeps between the shower curtains, and waits to attack you, or watch you, while you're sitting defenseless on the toilet

One of my best friend's has a medium sized mutt, I think she's a terrier mix, golden color with short, soft hair, and a cropped tail. She has a wonderful repertoire of tricks. She plays dead, but rather than laying on her back, she just lays on her side, and lifts her rear leg in the air. Then, if you gently scold her, and tell her "all the way dead", she gives you the real, all the way on her back, play dead.

She also has a strange affinity for her potted palm plant. Every now and again, you will catch her walking in nearly impossibly slow circles around this plant, staring at nothing in the general direction of the floor about 3 feet in front of her, with the palm leaves err so gently touching her back as she circles. If you say her name while she's doing it, or even look at her, she immediately gives you her "I'm a naughty dog" look, even though she's never been in trouble for it.

 

[Laughinggravy0]

This is a fab idea for a thread.
Gypsy your Merlin is camouflaged in that white bath! The wall staring is a good one, I don't why cats do the staring off into the distance or at walls but I'd have had the same reaction as you - can she hear something. I think their reasons can be even more obscure than low level scuttling noises in the wall. Oh no reason at all!! Cat reasoning.... I love the joint howling!

My mum's cat did the staring into space and she used to say Ghoooooossstsss Ghossstsss (my mum that is, not the cat!) But group staring would freak me out too, Haven. I love your pics of Bailee and the face on him in the blue jumper looks long suffering and patient The ear hug on the sofa is particularly sweet. Yes that toy in mouth thing is exactly it, tail thumping and the happy dance - tail wagging so much that hind end skews and dog can't walk. We have wooden floors so she looses traction when wagging frantically. And she has a proper tail - however horrible the people were who dumped her at the shelter, they didn't dock her hail. So its a lovely spaniel flag of delight.

Fruit bashing, that's so funny - excuse the bruised apple, its suffered cat attack. Too funny.

SUCH a good idea for a thread, funny stuff and cute photos, what more could one want?! Oh and Molls will follow the instruction - 'take the slipper up up up to sweetie' if I want to get a message up to JM and he's upstairs. I just have to tie a note onto her collar and give her a slipper to hold and off she'll got, galloping up the stairs, to deliver the slipper and the note along with it Lazy persons' telegraphy.

 

[princesss]

Growing up, I had a black Lab named Brigit. She turned into quite the dainty old lady, and she adopted this yellow squeaky frog that we got her as her baby. She would carry it around with her, this big, ugly, yellow frog with orange spots, like it needed to be cared for and snuggled and kept safe.

Trying to get her to play with it, we squeaked it. Well. That was just not done. She would glare at us, pick up the frog ever so gently, glare at us again, and go tuck it safely away in her bed. If it was squeaked and she was not in the room, she'd come running and repeat the glare, pick up, glare, hide routine.

I miss my girl, she was a funny duck.

Can't think of anything truly odd that the cats do, but I've been away from them for a month so maybe I just can't think of any recent examples.

 

[dragonfly411]

My sisters dog will bark at the horses while hopping on his front feet.

 

[minousbijoux]

I LOVE this thread! It has got to be my all time favorite! Merlin who stares at the bathtub wall? An oh so cute slipper carrying messenger? A cat who has ahem, "unresolved issues" with the fruit bowl? A pittie who believes they're little enough to wedge in? Who have I forgotten? Oh yes, Gypsy, your family chorus! That is too funny! I want to read this all out loud to my three dogs.

The one kinda funny thing one of my current dogs, Chui, does is sleep under the covers. I don't know how she does it. I get up in the morning and make my bed. I'll come back during the day, and there she'll be, on her side, covered with the covers, with her head on the pillow like she's a person taking a nap. I have never seen how she manages to get under there in that position without unmaking the whole bed. I guess its her little secret (she doesn't like it when you watch her nest). I've tried to tell her that this is my bed, not hers, but she is bored by that information...

 

[Gypsy]

I LOVE this thread! It has got to be my all time favorite! Merlin who stares at the bathtub wall? An oh so cute slipper carrying messenger? A cat who has ahem, "unresolved issues" with the fruit bowl? A pittie who believes they're little enough to wedge in? Who have I forgotten? Oh yes, Gypsy, your family chorus! That is too funny! I want to read this all out loud to my three dogs.

The one kinda funny thing one of my current dogs, Chui, does is sleep under the covers. I don't know how she does it. I get up in the morning and make my bed. I'll come back during the day, and there she'll be, on her side, covered with the covers, with her head on the pillow like she's a person taking a nap. I have never seen how she manages to get under there in that position without unmaking the whole bed. I guess its her little secret (she doesn't like it when you watch her nest). I've tried to tell her that this is my bed, not hers, but she is bored by that information...

She sounds like a love MB. You must post pics of her in HER bed.

Yeah, I love this thread. I had DH read it last night and he was enjoying it too. The family chorus probably says more about the humans than the cat, admittedly but what are you gonna do?


Haven, in the Reindeer Dog pic... what is that around you dog's lower half, it looks like a sarong. And do you have more pics of it? DH was fascinated by that. I'm glad you got a chuckle out of the bathtub pics. It's just plain weird.

Laughinggravy-- surprisingly hard to take pics of a white cat in a white tub. Fortunately he really is in there for hours, so there was lots of opportunity to get pics that finally came out right (we took lots of bad ones).

Matata, I'm with Haven. We need a video of the cat subduing the unruly fruit.

 

[Haven]

I keep coming back to this thread for new laughs!

Gypsy--That's actually just my wool scarf wrapped around Bailee's tummy. It was really cold outside, and she has a bare tummy. (The Garden actually switched the even from a Reindog Parade to a Spooky Pooch Parade since because all the pups were too cold!) This is the only other shot I have of her lower half:


I can't get over your bathtub kitty. My husband laughed so hard when I showed him your pictures.

Manderz--That's hilarious about your kitty and the potted plant!

LaughingGravy--I love that you can send messages with your pup! That is AWESOME!

Minous--Awwww! Pup under the covers. Love it.

 

[Haven]

Okay, I'm still stuck at home with terrible morning sickness so I am loving this thread way too much, and I want more pictures!

Another weird thing our animals do is they kind of smother us when we're sleeping. I often wake up and DH will have all five of them glommed on him, it's hilarious. We had just gotten home from some trip the night before I took this picture (hence the luggage in the background,) so I think they were especially needy. He'd be so embarrassed if he knew I was sharing this picture, but it's pretty hilarious. Geddy is standing on top of his chest rubbing his face all over DH's chin. Poor sleeping DH.

 

[Haven]

Here's another one: Our cat Manny is obsessed with laptops. He LOVES cuddling with them, open or shut, but he prefers them open. DH hates it when I let Manny sleep on my laptop, but every now and then I give in when I'm the only one home.

 

[wildcat03]

My sister's dog has always been pretty neurotic, but starting shortly after the time he had pneumonia he started doing this thing where he freaks out over recessed lighting and shadows from lights. My parents kitchen has both recessed lighting and hanging lights. He's FINE with the hanging lights being on. But if the recessed lights are on he growls at the shadows they create - he's really scared of them!!!

 

[vintagelover229]

This thread keeps making me laugh! Everyones pictures are SO great! I love all the stories-keep them coming!


I don't have many more stories to share (off the top of my head) but I did have a dog (a Pap/Pom mix) when I moved to Canada named shadow and he didn't take the move well. The apt. wasn't a good place for him so we gave him to a retired couple who is friends with the family and he's a ham now (really-you could roll him-he has no shape anymore lol) and is doing great. I miss him but I know he's well loved and taken care of and I LOVE having a cat-so much better for us at this point in our lives!

I've got a few pet pictures to share-this is how he used to sleep sometimes-made me chuckle every time I saw him! 8lbs of fluff!


I also am sharing a picture of me that I hate-I realize I have a white bread in this pic due to photo shop but I had broken out so bad that I would rather have a painted on bread than show my face fully

The photo was of her (which she used to do all the time) of when she had used her box and decided to come groom herself directly behind my head. I hear her and I'm like are you REALLY licking your butt RIGHT by my head? You know you have a CAT TREE with a privacy box RIGHT over there. She gave me a look...and proceeded to continue to groom herself behind my head!

I have a few more to share but I'll have to do it on another post

 

[vintagelover229]

Here is one where I am training her not to be an insane cat when I'm holding her/moving her around. It took about a year but she's SO much more mellow about everything now-and even comes up and sits on your lap and likes being carried around. So-my "training" worked lol! At first though I got a lot of annoyed "alright, I know if I don't fuss and sit here for just a little while she will eventually let me go if I don't go crazy on her" looks like this one lol!

The next shot is her wearing shadows old saints jersey and frill collar lol. It was a gift from a friend and I tried it on her-she actually took it pretty well!

Okay-so my cat is pretty weird. She likes blankets and she really likes the knit sweater my MIL made about 30 yrs ago and gave to me. She'll try to climb up inside of it to snuggle-so I let her. That is the first picture.

The next photo you can't judge me for. I swear I wasn't being mean. As I said she likes to snuggle under things and one day she was trying to get under the blankets and I opened them up for her and she proceeded to try and go under my knit sweater (it's my favorite one I can't help it lol) and she nudged her way under my long sleeved shirt. She proceeds to continue up my shirt and I'm like wtf are you doing cat? She starts to freak out when she realizes she can't get out very well and tries to go OUT MY ARM hole. She's stuck so I manage to get off my sweater (it wasn't buttoned) and she's really trying to free herself by going down my arm. I'm like HELLO cat you're not going to fit. So I manage to take off my shirt and just leave her there figuring she'll figure out how to get out herself. Well she didn't. She continues to try and get out the arm hole. So I decide to help her along and this is what the end result looked like. I held her like that for a second before pulling her out backwards-which is probably what I should have done from the get go but it was just to funny watching her inside the shirt. She hasn't tried to crawl up my shirt since!

 

[Haven]

OHMIGOSH! Shadow sleeping on the sofa is one of the funniest things I have ever seen! How is that comfortable? Hahahahaha!

 

[Mayk]

My Merlin (to be fair, he's not very bright) goes into the office and YOWLS like he's afraid he's been abandoned. When he does it my husband and I sing, in tune with the yowling "all alonnnnnnnnne, I'm allllllllllllll alone!". And then we call him and he RUNS back into the living room SO RELIEVED as if he's been found and saved. Does this every other night or so.

And then there is the bathtub staring. He takes turns in our bathroom and one of the guest bathrooms. He sits in each for alike an HOUR staring at the wall, just tilting his head this way and that. When he gets access to the bathroom in the guest room he does it there too. For hours. It made my husband and I so paranoid we thought we had something in the walls he could hear. But when he expanded out to all the bathrooms in the house, we've decided it's just him.

White cat in a tub.

GYPSY!!!! This absolutely cracked me up!!!! That's awesome!!!! Our cat talks.. and walks into rooms he's been into a 1,000 times like something is going to come out of a corner and get him.. he creeps.. and he opens the door for himself if you don't let him in (the disadvantage of having level handles on the doors...but that's it)

 

[audball]

JustGinger you're here in Ireland!? No way! How long more are you here for? I hope you're having a great time! Sorry about the weather this weekend...

My dog sits really funny it's so cute. He looks like an old man when he does it! He's only about 2yrs old in this photo:

Hahah, my last schnauzer did this too. Always sat on the outside part of her "butt". So odd.

 

[DiamondBrokersofFlorida]

Hi AGBF,
Yes it is. I've missed you Deb. This one's name is Gracie. She is the mother of 4 of my babies.

 

[Gypsy]

Mayk, I know right? Honestly, it's kinda the gift that keeps on giving. Every time I see him in there I snicker.

Haven, what a great doggie momma you are! It never would have occurred to me that was your shawl!! I'm sure she appreciated the tummy cover very much.

 

[minousbijoux]

More stories! Keep them coming! Haven, I LOVE how everyone gravitates to your sleeping husband. Kinda like he becomes a giant magnet when he falls asleep - they really do look glued to him!

 

[Haven]

Mayk, I know right? Honestly, it's kinda the gift that keeps on giving. Every time I see him in there I snicker.

Haven, what a great doggie momma you are! It never would have occurred to me that was your shawl!! I'm sure she appreciated the tummy cover very much.

If someone can create and sell a doggy coat that covers a pup's bare belly, they will make lots of money on it. At least, here in Chicago they will. The closest I've found is a wool coat with a tummy flap, but that still lets a lot of air in. My poor bald-bellied baby! She's not built for this heinous weather.

Minous--Haha, I love it--DH the sleep magnet! They do glom on. It's nice in the winter, they keep us warm.
And I agree, we need more stories and pictures! I love this thread!

 

[DiamondBrokersofFlorida]

Also if someone can create a doggie diaper that they can't get out of that will also make a fortune. I've tried many different kind of one of my boys and he is a houdini. Always gets it off and chews it up.

 

[AGBF]

I often wake up and DH will have all five of them glommed on him, it's hilarious. We had just gotten home from some trip the night before I took this picture (hence the luggage in the background,) so I think they were especially needy. He'd be so embarrassed if he knew I was sharing this picture, but it's pretty hilarious. Geddy is standing on top of his chest rubbing his face all over DH's chin. Poor sleeping DH.

Haven-

Does your husband, by any chance, snore? I am not a "cat person", I am a "dog person". However, my best friend (who has five dogs, three cats, and one pet chicken in a cage just in her Connecticut house) is a "dog and cat person". Recently she told me that cats love snoring. I was at her home and one of her son's friends had fallen asleep on her living room couch. Her cats were all over him. He was gently snoring. She told me that that was why they were there...and I believed her. She knows her cats quite well! I said it was as if they were drawn to the Mother Ship because the snoring was like the Mother of all Purring!

Deb/AGBF