I don't know why, but I am always still surprised at how quirky our fur-babies are. Why are these little creatures, covered in fur with have adorable little faces, as strange as they are?
Because they are strange.
Just like every person I've known, every pet we've ever had as part of our family had weird little quirks about them.
It's still so odd to me, when I think about it for more than a minute, to realize that these little fur blobs that run around our homes have their own wants and desires. They have their own little furry agendas. And they have their own bizarre ways of dealing with the world.
I think that's why we love them so much. If they were, in fact, just little complacent balls of fur, they wouldn't be very interesting. I would still want them, but we wouldn't get as attached. It's their uniqueness (um, weirdness) that makes them so loveable. It gives them their unique personalities.
Here are a few of the weirdest quirks my pets, current and former, have had:
Cat elevator
We have the bowl of our cats' food on top of our clothes dryer because we don't regulate the cat food and we don't want our dog to eat it. Well, our cat Jasmine decided she didn't want to jump onto the dryer (even though at the time she was perfectly capable of doing it) so we would give her what we called a "cat elevator." I think my husband came up with the term.
It just meant that she would meow and stand by the dryer, and whichever human was available and in the vicinity would give her a lift to the food bowl. However, if nobody was around, we knew she could get herself up there. Well, fast forward 10 years, and now Jasmine has a hard time jumping up onto the dryer. Normally, we are around and can give her a lift when she needs it, but when we are out of town and we have a pet sitter come, I wanted to make sure she could still get to the food more than a couple times a day—especially because she's shy and will often hide when the pet sitter visits.
So I taught her she could jump onto her kitty litter box and then jump onto the washer, which is right next to the dryer. She reluctantly learned how to do this, and now can do it with ease. But usually she still meows at us when we're around and she's hungry. However, if we just point to the kitty litter box after she meows, she dutifully jumps herself up to her food. It's actually very funny that we all play along with this ritual.
Food treat spot
Our dog Pidu likes Milk Bones. Milk Bones are little crunchy dog biscuits. Our dog doesn't have a very strong jaw, so these treats, that many dogs would easily chomp down in a matter of seconds, take him some time to eat. And several years ago I realized he never eats them around me. He always takes them off to a special place he has designated as his treat spot. I'm not sure why he does this because it's not as if he's ever had to fight over his food or treats. We aren't people that give him treats and then yank them away.
And, the cats have zero interest in the Milk Bones, so he doesn't have to fight for them. But he takes them and scurries away to a his special spot anyway. He likes his privacy I guess. Once I experimented by not letting him leave my side after I gave him the treat. And he just sat with it in his mouth for several minutes. I'm not sure how long he would have stayed in that position, but I got bored (and felt like a mean human), so I let him take it off to eat in private.
Mice in the toilet
For the record—not real mice. I am referring to the toys you can pick up at the grocery store that look alarmingly like real mice. Actually I don't know if they still sell them, they're probably some kind of choking hazard. They were very realistic looking, colored grey and white, and they had something inside them that rattled.
We had a cat named Mika who would a) immediately eat the leather tails off the toy mice, and then b) dump the bodies into the toilet. So when people innocently went to the bathroom they would look down and see what appeared to be a dead mouse in the commode. This was particularly alarming in the middle of the night. The number of times I had to fish these toys out of the toilet was numerous and she always somehow knew when I was doing it. She would always appear out of nowhere and anxiously try to reclaim her property, and then have the audacity to get very distressed when I would throw it in the garbage. Silly cat. If she didn't want me to throw them away she needed to put them in a more sanitary place!
Fear of farts
Pidu is afraid of farts. And it's not the smell—it's the noise. If he hears farts, or farting noises, he slinks away like the little baby that he is. It's actually very funny. And since I don't normally fart around other people, this is sadly an experience I don't get to share with other people. Lastly, because I'm a horrible person, sometimes when it's just me and Pidu hanging out, I will purposely fart as loudly as I can just because his reaction is so funny. You don't need to tell me I'm a mean human, I know it. But honestly, his fleeing from farts is very entertaining.
Toni here. It will be hard to beat Mara's last entry, but I'll try. I've had over a dozen dogs so far and each one had its quirks. But the quirkiest prize has to be split between Winnie, our sweet standard poodle, and our current dog, Scout
Cries like a baby
For some reason, when Scout chews on certain squeaky toys, she whimpers and weeps as if something is wrong. It's definitely a distressed sound. We used to rush into the room, thinking she'd hurt herself. Now we recognize the sound. I think it's some kind of primal puppy weeping thing, like maybe she's remembering her litter, but honestly, I have no idea why she does this. And every once in a while, she puts the toy down and begins to howl as if her heart is broken.
Drops a ball into the pool so she can jump in and get it
Scout loves to fetch balls in the pool but I can't sit outside all day and throw them for her to retrieve. One day, I heard a splash and realized that she had dropped a ball into the pool so that she could jump in and retrieve it as if it had been thrown for her. She's done this several times and it's so funny to watch.
Eats anything
Ah, Winnie, our dog who would eat anything. The list is long and includes a whole basket of chocolates that had been given to me for my birthday (I know...chocolate is supposed to be toxic to dogs...but it wasn't to Winnie); an entire jar of Noxema skin cream; a bunch of firecrackers (yup); a bottle of estrogen pills (sometimes I think it was those estrogen pills that led to her living to a very old dog age).
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How about you? Mara and I would love to hear about the quirky things your animals do!
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| Scout |
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