Strange things your "children" do

[annaig]

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As I sit here typing away at the computer being oh-so-productive, I'm struck by the absolute quiet in my apartment. Looking around, I see kitteh #1 passed out on the sofa, jammed between the cushions. Kitteh #2 has decided to use a plastic bag on the floor as a bed. I think she's been sleeping there for some time since the bag has molded around her nicely. Earlier she was sleeping on a box.

I ask myself, what is the point of buying them beds, blankets, houses, etc? They never sleep in them!

 

[JerseyisCutest]

..

 

[zpinkpanther]

I always go nuts buying things when I'm getting a new pet... kinda like when people are expecting and wake up in the middle of the night and go buy truckloads of stuff for the baby. When I was getting my kitten, I bought him a bed made of this super duper soft material that's supposed to conform to their shape and support them- kind of like the Tempurpedic beds for people. Well, it was pretty expensive and he never touched it, so after a couple weeks, I just returned it. He'll only sleep on a folding chair we have in the kitchen or on my bed. SO spoiled. 🙄

At least he plays with the toys I get him, for the most part. Although sometimes I think he's just as happy playing with an empty box or a bottle cap. 😛

 

[weirdhobo]

My two pugs(no longer with me) used to be the defenders of our koi pond from the cranes! It was unfortunate they weren't very good at it xD Those cranes must have taken dozens of koi lol...
Also they ate leaves and what i believe was rabbit dung (is that normal? lol)

 

[adOggy07]

Also they ate leaves and what i believe was rabbit dung (is that normal? lol)

Oh my goodness... my dog loves the rabbit poo. It's deeeeesgusting! But for some reason he isn't prone to cat poo... which is weird, because I find that most dogs love to eat cat poo on the sly.

 

[weirdhobo]

Haha so this isn't just some rare oddity? 😛 I read somewhere that it somehow helps the dog's digestion, but I could be mistaken.

 

[Steelmagghia]

My pup collects all my cat's poo from outside and piles it together on her mountain (a huge dirt pile in the backyard). Why? No idea. She just likes it in one spot, I guess.
Also, she has this sort of grunt noise she makes when she feels she is being ignored. If that doesn't work, she starts coughing. It's very effective. 😀

 

[winkle1983]

Every morning my son...see avatar...will stretch out in bed, make this very very strange straining sound when he stretches, shakes, and stares at my face. Stares...doesn't lick, doesn't push me with his nose...just stares. Like 2 inches from my face. It scares the bejeezus out of me every morning. And he gets so happy when he sees my eyes open! Makes me smile every morning.

 

[shuvball1]

My youngest kitty LOVES bottle caps. If I even touch a bottle of water, he'll wake up from a dead sleep, sprint across the room, and stare at the bottle. I'm not quite sure how this obsession developed, just one day, out of the blue, he was obsessed. He also plays fetch with one particular mouse. He's a nut 😀. Oh, and he sleeps in the sink.

 

[Catnapper]

One of my cats loves to go outside. However, when it rains and I open the front door to prove to him that the windows on the other side of the house do not lie (it really is raining), he'll growl and hiss at the rain, and return to his place on the couch, growling the whole way.

 

[turnandburn]

One of my cats will eat ANYTHING. Besides the typical stuff like cheese and popcorn, he eats plain raw veggies, fruit, hot peppers... and even non-food items like the occasional paper towel or plastic baggie that he roots out of garbages.

Warning: This is disgusting- but once he actually ate a used condom from out of the garbage! I only found out about it because I happened to walk in the room and there was just that little ring part on the floor and he was sitting right next to it. I freaked out and me and my bf desperately tried to get him to throw it up by giving him some h2o2 but he fought back really hard to we had to call the emergency vet (its 10 at night!) and explain that our cat ate a condom! I thought for sure they'd think it a prank. Anyway we brought him in and they sedated him and got him to throw it up.

How embarrasing! 😛

 

[Angie09]

My little labx once ate an entire bag of rawhide strips while I was at work -- about a pound of rawhide. My ex (who was home with her at the time) didn't realize this could be problematic, so he just chalked it up to canine hijinks and let it go, so when I came home hours later and he told me about it (and I saw her visibly distended abdomen), I freaked! Called my vet, who said that enough time had elapsed that vomiting wouldn't help because it was probably all out of her stomach by then (more on this later!), and to watch her very carefully for signs of obstruction.

Hours later, we were sleeping soundly, and I woke up not to the sound of my dog vomiting up a literal mountain of digested rawhide on our bed (bad mother, I know), but to the fierce growling and snarling coming from two of my dogs fighting over who got to eat it! WHY?!?!?! You'd think we never, ever feed them!

 

[Steelmagghia]

Yeah, my little miss will eat anything she thinks is food, too.

Including rocks. ::shakes head::

Side Note: Has anyone else had to start watching calling their animals, "My little girl", "My daughter", etc? I do that, usually just "my little girl" and people start thinking I actually have a human child, despite the fact that I am describing entirely canine behavior. 😳
It's so hard not to call her my baby, though, because really, she is.

 

[wi girl]

I call my female cocker 'baby girl' sometimes. And she displays the same behavior as jersey described: we call her bone her safety blanket. She meets someone new, has to have the bone in her mouth. She wakes up, has to find the bone. We start playing (running/jumping/trying to catch her feet as she dances away) she stops, gets this very specific look on her face, zooms off to find the bone, and cames back to commence play -- even if we don't play with it, she needs it by her. Oddly enough, she doesn't have problems sharing it (the bone) as long as she knows where it is, so it doesn't seem to be a territorial thing. Anyhow, she's an oddball.

 

[VetMed555]

I adopted my dachshund from SPCA when he was about 5 years old. We share facilities with a surgeon at work, so I got to see a lot of dachshunds with back problems/operations. I was really scared that this would happen to him. So one night we were watching a movie and he starts howling and crying as if he's in deep pain. I brought him in to my work and our vet didn't find anything wrong with him. The next night it happened again, so I was sure something is very very wrong with him. It turned out, he cries and howls EVERY TIME there's classical/sad/soft music on TV/Radio, and it sounds as if he's physically in pain. What a nut job .

 

[BartonVet87]

Side Note: Has anyone else had to start watching calling their animals, "My little girl", "My daughter", etc? I do that, usually just "my little girl" and people start thinking I actually have a human child, despite the fact that I am describing entirely canine behavior. 😳
It's so hard not to call her my baby, though, because really, she is.

One of the large animal vets that I work for absolutely HATES it when people use parental references when talking about animals. I really don't have an opinion yet 😕

 

[Catnapper]

One of the large animal vets that I work for absolutely HATES it when people use parental references when talking about animals. I really don't have an opinion yet 😕

Absolutely! I'll say that so-and-so's papa or mama dropped him/her off for boarding, etc. And I refer to my cats as my kids, or "the kids", and occasionally shock people who didn't think I had had any human kids.😀

 

[Steelmagghia]

One of the large animal vets that I work for absolutely HATES it when people use parental references when talking about animals. I really don't have an opinion yet 😕

Haha, oh man. Well, I don't think that will stop me much. I really don't ever want children, so she definitely is my "baby".
And try telling the little old lady who has nothing in the world but her dachshund/poodle/shih tzu/lhasa/other old lady dog that the dog is not, indeed, her child.

 

[Steelmagghia]

Absolutely! I'll say that so-and-so's papa or mama dropped him/her off for boarding, etc. And I refer to my cats as my kids, or "the kids", and occasionally shock people who didn't think I had had any human kids.😀

Woot, Catnapper! Glad to know I am not the only one. 😀

 

[freyamaxine]

Oh my goodness... my dog loves the rabbit poo. It's deeeeesgusting! But for some reason he isn't prone to cat poo... which is weird, because I find that most dogs love to eat cat poo on the sly.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coprophagy

 

[TractorKid]

My little kitteh (not the one in my avatar, I have 2) has a SERIOUS obsession with weepuls (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weepul). She will carry them around in her mouth and snarl, hiss and growl at you if you come near her. But as soon as the weepul is gone, she purrs and head butts you etc. She's like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hide.

And, for the record, I always call my cats "the kids."

 

[Steelmagghia]

My little kitteh (not the one in my avatar, I have 2) has a SERIOUS obsession with weepuls (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weepul). She will carry them around in her mouth and snarl, hiss and growl at you if you come near her. But as soon as the weepul is gone, she purrs and head butts you etc. She's like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hide.

And, for the record, I always call my cats "the kids."

Holy heck! I remember Weeples! They were so awesome back in the day.

 

[Angie09]

Oh my goodness... my dog loves the rabbit poo.

The labx I mentioned before LOVES horse manure. We used to take the dogs hiking on a multi-use trail, and the other dogs would be on retractable leashes so they could explore a little, but Bella always had to be on a 3-foot leash because otherwise she would start frenziedly devouring every pile of horse manure we came across. She could eat quite a bit of it before we caught up the slack in a longer leash, so she got a short one.

My chow mix loves to tunnel under the covers on the bed. Every night when we go to bed, as soon as I lift the covers to get in, she dives underneath them and starts writhing around and yipping, trying to get the other dogs to play with her. It's hilarious! Sometimes she tunnels all the way down the bed and comes out the other end.

Oh, and does every dog like to "bury" bones in plain sight? When I was writing my thesis (so I was sitting in one spot for a long time, eager for a distraction) I gave my ex's beagle mix a rawhide flip, and she took it over to the pile of blankets I'd laid out for her next to the desk, and spent literally 30 minutes "burying" it in the blanket (not actually covering it up! Just pushing air over it with her nose!). She was so happy -- she would work on it for a few minutes, stop and look at me, grab the rawhide and move it over to a different section of blanket, and start again. I filmed some of it with my digital camera -- it almost makes me cry laughing every time I look at it. 🙂

 

[TractorKid]

Holy heck! I remember Weeples! They were so awesome back in the day.

Weeples Rock! 😀

We order a variety pack of them from an online vendor just for her. After a few weeks they are all missing their eyeballs and feet!

 

[Steelmagghia]

Oh, and does every dog like to "bury" bones in plain sight? When I was writing my thesis (so I was sitting in one spot for a long time, eager for a distraction) I gave my ex's beagle mix a rawhide flip, and she took it over to the pile of blankets I'd laid out for her next to the desk, and spent literally 30 minutes "burying" it in the blanket (not actually covering it up! Just pushing air over it with her nose!). She was so happy -- she would work on it for a few minutes, stop and look at me, grab the rawhide and move it over to a different section of blanket, and start again. I filmed some of it with my digital camera -- it almost makes me cry laughing every time I look at it. 🙂

Oh man, my Shih tzu used to "bury" her bones at the baseboards...and she worked SO HARD to get it JUST RIGHT.
Maddie, my Papillon, does it sometimes, but she's more into the "getting the bed just right". She will pull out her perfectly formed dog bed and scratch at it, flip it over, rearrange it, and scrunch it for literally 30 minutes before laying down in it...and it always looks EXACTLY the same as before.
She's a dork.

 

[NittanyKitty]

Hmmm...my shepherd is getting a little gassier as she ages, and I'm sure a lot of you with big dogs can appreciate that situation. 😉 Anyway, sometimes when she's sitting up, she'll let out a little squeaky toot and then turn around as though she has no idea where the sound came from. Kinda gross, but always hilarious seeing as how it happens every day.

Our mix licks the entire kitchen floor every single night in the hopes that we might have spilled something. Of course, she never wants to touch her own food until she's desperate.

 

[168135]

In the summer, my cat lays out like this in the middle of the basement floor:

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=102395&l=0e68d&id=515127414

 

[Steelmagghia]

In the summer, my cat lays out like this in the middle of the basement floor:

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=102395&l=0e68d&id=515127414

Oh my gosh! Your cat reminds me of my cat.

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=33214792&op=2&o=all&view=all&subj=160200007&id=16720109

 

[CalpardNY]

I could go on and on with the things my pets have done as im sure most of you can. My big boy is a Portuguese Water Dog and for anyone who knows the breed you know they are clowns/puppies their entire lives (he is 12 has bad hips , barely can put weight on his back legs some days, but still can not be left with food on the table and MUST play some sort of game or make a mess with the toys every night from about 7-10 pm!). He has stolen a can of tuna fish and eaten the can and all, stolen a whole chicken in one of those plastic containers out of a shoulder height microwave, carried it upstairs, opened the container and ate the whole thing w/o making a mess, opened a zippered backpack and taken out a bottle of tylenol, licks up activated charcoal, oh the list goes on and on (Luckily (knock on wood) with all that we have never had a fb issue or had to go to the vet...but maybe hes smart b/c he gets fed lots of loaves of bread for coating!)

My cat that adopted us likes to go on "walks" with the dogs and will follow you as you walk down the street. But he also likes to run ahead, hide behind the tree and jump out and scare my bichon! We think he is a dog in a cats body!

But its my 8lb toy poodle that is the nutter. He watches tv - literally if it is on he refuses to face the other way from it. He barks at animals, cartoon animals, babies, violence, and sarah jessica parker (I have strawberry blond curly hair and occasionally he barks at others with curly hair so we think he thinks its me!). And there is a different bark for each! If he hears the sex and the city theme song, or certain commercial jingles he will run in from the other room even! And not only that, but if you put a video or something of an animal on the computer he will watch it too (he used to love the garfield trailor!). If you say "tucker look" he will run up to the tv and sniff and if its off he'll come running back to our laptops and perch on the coffee table they sit on! One day we will put it on you tube!

 

[ShelterGirl]

Well, one of my cats is an incorrigible cord-chewer. Bitter apple? No. Wrapping the cords in tape or plastic sleeves? Still chews 'em. He has his own special cord-free room to stay in during the day when unsupervised.

Two of them are harness trained and pretend they're fierce hunters when out in the jungle of our yard.

One says "woof," has never met a stranger, and drinks from the toilet regularly (yeah, the one in my avatar.)

 

[veggirl]

One of my cats has a very unusual addiction to pens. Picture this - you are sitting there studying and taking notes and then you absolutely cannot find your pen anywhere even though you knew it was right beside you 2 minutes ago. You go get another one and then 5 minutes goes by, and that ones lost too. The cycle continues until you realize what is going on and you start looking for the culprit - in this case, Noel - who has gathered all the pens she could find in the house in a pile around her as she plays with them as if they are covered in catnip. I seriously stopped buying her toys and now, for her birthday and xmas stocking, every year, she gets a whole bag of pens to just go crazy with! And she acts like its the best gift I could ever give her. She is definitely a nut, but I love her!

And I totally use "my little girl" and most of the other annoying references for my animals as well, just for the record.

 

[BartonVet87]

Pens!! I have found so many in between the couch cushions. My cats love diving into the couch and hunting 😀

 

[dyachei]

My cats are pretty weird, at least IMHO. My one cat would get vengeful if we went on vacation and left her with a catsitter (we lived overseas, so we'd go on "home-leave" for a month each summer). When we'd get home, she'd wait for us to leave a bedroom door open and leave a turd or a stain on the first bed she got to. After that, she was her old self.

My second cat got her name because she likes spicy food (or did) and licked a bowl of chili con queso clean...her name is now Chili (it didn't help that she's an abyssinian and has a red dot on her head). This was also the cat that didn't "get" that she was spayed and we caught her with a male cat a couple of times. But she's a wily one. She knows that if she hacks, she gets put outside (they are indoor/outdoor cats) because we don't want to clean up the mess. So now, if she wants out and we aren't responding to her, she'll start hacking at the door until she gets what she wants.

 

[veggirl]

Pens!! I have found so many in between the couch cushions. My cats love diving into the couch and hunting 😀

Yes!!! Yes!!! Your cats are weird too! YAY! I just always assumed she was a little on the "special" side!

 

[twelvetigers]

One of my cats likes to eat socks and drag his rear end on the rug... the dog does neither. Case of mistaken identity?

 

[handh02]

My dog, a beagle, simply cannot be trusted to be home alone. He will get bored and decide to investigate something, anything, and before we get home, even if it's only been 15 minutes, he will have made a mess of the house. I used to think it was him looking for food, so I have since made sure nothing edible is ever in doggie reach, but now he just goes and climbs onto the bookshelves and pulls out DVDs and bags of random crap.

My father in law moved in with us a few months ago, and really didn't believe that the dog couldn't be trusted (he loves my dog to death and spoils him more than I do!), so every couple of days he would "test" him by leaving him alone for a few minutes, and every time my dog would make a mess. My father in law still tests him every once in a while, but not as often anymore.

Also, this dog does the thing with re-arranging the bed. He goes crazy if there are wrinkles in his blanket and will try to dig them out, etc, for a looonnng time! Same thing if he is sleeping in our bed (which I am guilty of letting him do when my husband is out of town), but he has to have it just right before he can lay down. He'll also rub the top of his head all over the blanket, which is a very funny sight to see.

I call him my baby sometimes, but mostly the human terms are between my husband and myself (ie - "Look what your son has done now!").

 

[CalpardNY]

Also, this dog does the thing with re-arranging the bed. He goes crazy if there are wrinkles in his blanket and will try to dig them out, etc, for a looonnng time! Same thing if he is sleeping in our bed (which I am guilty of letting him do when my husband is out of town), but he has to have it just right before he can lay down. He'll also rub the top of his head all over the blanket, which is a very funny sight to see.

My dog kinda does the opposite...if you leave anything on the floor he will make a bed out of it. Towels, blankets, jackets, clothes, pillows of course but also plastic bags, magazines, anything. He digs it and fluffs it up and makes it just right.

And if we are packing to go away - forget it, you have to watch you don't pack him in the suitcase. I thought that was just a cat thing but i guess hes a toy poodle so he can get away with it (hes also a spoiled brat of course!)

 

[slainte]

In reference to the dogs eating poo question.. the vet I work for told me that its because cat poo has a lot of protein. I guess for that reason its inticing/delicious to dogs. Yum!

 

[VAgirl]

My dog kinda does the opposite...if you leave anything on the floor he will make a bed out of it. Towels, blankets, jackets, clothes, pillows of course but also plastic bags, magazines, anything. He digs it and fluffs it up and makes it just right.

My cat does this. Except she makes no attempt to make them comfortable. In fact, it seems that the more uncomfortable the item, the more likely that she'll want to sit down on it. I'm talking about purses with hard, pokey things inside them; uneven piles of magazines/books; the tops of doors... She's weird, but I guess I just figured it a cat thing. I've given up trying to understand feline behavior.

 

[Catnapper]

I've given up trying to understand feline behavior.

 

[JerseyisCutest]

...

 

[VAgirl]

Does anyone else have a dog with an obsession with the laser pointer?

I used to play with my kitty with a laser pointer, which was fun and she seemed to enjoy. But then she started becoming obsessed with shadows. I mean, she'd sit in my apartment and fixate on the dancing shadows of trees for literally the entire day. She moved slowly across the living room with the shadows as the day progressed, mostly staring but also sometimes trying to bat at a shadow. I began to worry as this activity was replacing most everything else that she liked to do. She wouldn't even play with other toys when I tried to entice her (not even her favorite toys). I read something online (no idea of accuracy) that laser pointers might encourage this shadow fixation. So I stopped using laser pointers to play with her and I swear she's actually much less shadow-fixated now. Totally anecdotal, I know. But I just thought I'd share that. Crazy cat.

 

[Angie09]

I mean, she'd sit in my apartment and fixate on the dancing shadows of trees for literally the entire day. She moved slowly across the living room with the shadows as the day progressed, mostly staring but also sometimes trying to bat at a shadow.

Does autism exist in cats? 🙂

My shepherd x, Casey, is the smartest dog in the world. You know that BC (I think his name was Rico) who was in Science a couple of years ago because his vocabulary and ability to extrapolate and think abstractly were so amazing? Well, Casey is smarter (in my completely, thoroughly, objectively unbiased opinion 😀) One piece of anecdotal evidence: I brought home a laser pointer to play with him a few years ago, because he loves to chase grasshoppers -- he gets so excited! He's usually a really calm dog who barely ever plays, but when he sees grasshoppers jumping around he goes nuts. But we don't run into bunches of grasshoppers very often, so I thought maybe I could sort of simulate their behavior with a laser pointer, and play with him that way. So I turned it on, and started moving it around, and Casey got excited. He chased it a little, batted at it, tried to pounce on it a couple of times. Then he stopped and stared at it for a few seconds (deep in thought, naturally), then looked back upward toward my hand, and figured it out! I couldn't believe it! It literally took about 3 minutes from when I first turned the thing on, until he figured out what was going on and completely lost interest. I was so disappointed. (But so proud of my brilliant son!) 😀

 

[WishingnHoping]

One of the large animal vets that I work for absolutely HATES it when people use parental references when talking about animals. I really don't have an opinion yet 😕

I think this is one of those things that has to do with large animals specifically, or at least I'm like that too! I am guilty as charged at calling small animals "children" etc etc but never, ever with a horse or other large animal. If you've competed with horses, sometimes they become more of "tools" than companion animals (ie. getting a new horse to compete at a higher level). Also, all animals are dangerous to some degree but large animals are LARGE and if you are calling them "baby" and treating them like that then someone could get seriously hurt with just simple mishandling. Okay, didn't want to open a can of worms but just adding my two cents in.

 

[lenadeb]

One of the large animal vets that I work for absolutely HATES it when people use parental references when talking about animals. I really don't have an opinion yet 😕

They aren't children - at best we are stewards and at worst owners.

Consider this: if they are children, "members of the family" or somehow we become their "parent" or "guardian/steward", then better get ready to have yourselves sued for more than the mere cost of the animal or medical care.

California has already started the trend and it does not bode well for the rest of the USA. You take your plaintiff as you find them so if the little old lady has a stroke because Fluffy had a bad day at the vet's and the little old lady ends up on a respirator and 24/7 nursing care for the next 10 years .. well ... guess who is going to foot the bill? Yep. You.

AVMA malpractice rates are currently about $250-300 a year (last I checked). Expect that to rise to a rather stunning $10-15,000 a year if we start considering dogs and cats and other pets "children" or anything more than what they are considered now ... personal property.

And you can also see more "proper parenting classes" pop up as well as requirements for insurance and other such for the Now Equal With Humans critters. And there can be a Department of Animal Welfare as a part of the State Department of Family Services so they can investigate if you have provided enough toys for Fluffy because an anonymous telephone tip ratted you out - you give NO toys and only their normal food!!

I agree with the LA guy - animals are not "children" and to place them into a category as surrogate children only opens up a Pandora's Box.

"Pets"? Yes. "Children"? No.

 

[Steelmagghia]

I think this is one of those things that has to do with large animals specifically, or at least I'm like that too! I am guilty as charged at calling small animals "children" etc etc but never, ever with a horse or other large animal. If you've competed with horses, sometimes they become more of "tools" than companion animals (ie. getting a new horse to compete at a higher level). Also, all animals are dangerous to some degree but large animals are LARGE and if you are calling them "baby" and treating them like that then someone could get seriously hurt with just simple mishandling. Okay, didn't want to open a can of worms but just adding my two cents in.

Oh man, I know a guy who refers to his new calf as his "son".
Kinda strange.

 

[handh02]

Does anyone else have a dog with an obsession with the laser pointer? :

Yes! We originally had bought one for our cats, but my dog totally became obsessed with it! Our cats, of course, ignored the pointer for the most part, but man, my dog got his exercise with it! We used to live in this apartment building with a long corridor and he would just chase it up and down the corridor trying to catch the stupid dot! Good times!😀