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Gary350
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Re: Crazy / Amusing / Cute / Memorable Pet Stories

Growing up on the 40 acre farm in southern Illinois my Grandfather had 26 cats. Most of the cats were friendly and Grandpa had 1 favorite cat that he let into the house every morning while he ate breakfast. He hand fed the cat 1 bit at a time from his breakfast plate then petted it a while then the cat had to go outside.

One summer Grandpa had a new litter of kittens. My 6 year old sister liked to carry 1 of the kittens around by 1 back leg. She was told many times to stop doing that but she continued doing it. One day the cat was tired of being carried around by the back leg, I heard a loud cat growling hissing sound and my sister screamed for 20 minutes. LOL. She had scratches on both arms, both hands, face, neck, chest and 1 leg and blood was running everywhere.

I had 3 cats for a while all rescue cats. One day I noticed the black and white on the roof of the house. I stopped to look wondering how did that cat get on the roof. I watched and waited to see what the cat was going to do. She jumped off the roof right in the center of a 6 foot tall bush. When the bush stopped shaking it was totally silent no movement at all. I kept watching about 5 minutes later a bird flew into the bush and WOW it looked like World War 3 inside that bush. The bird was lucky it managed to escape. The cat jumped out of the bush, walked around the house, climbed up the tree then out on a limb and jumped off onto the house roof. Then it jumped off the roof into the bush again. LOL.

My White Cat with Blue eyes was a Manx cat with no tail. Manx cats have a different personality than other cats more like a dog. She liked to cuddle, play and be petted but it had to be her idea. It took me and the cat a couple of years to talk to each other by sign language. If the cat wanted to go outside she would set at the back door looking up at the door knob. If she wanted in the house she scratched on the back door. If I wanted to pick her up I had to touch here first if she did not want to be picked up she hissed at me. She had back legs like a jack rabbit she could run 2 times faster than other cats. Anytime she caught a bird or something she had this loud long drawn out meow sound and she always brought me what ever it was she caught like, LOOK what I caught. She loved to sleep in the garden she thought all that soft soil was her own personal giant cat poop box. I planted a patch of catnip one year all 3 cats would sleep in it all day. I had that cat 14 years she had a stroke last summer and died.

Now we have a feisty little kitten everything is something to play with. A year from now she will be a nice garden cat.

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ElizabethB
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I am glad to see that this thread is still active. There is no end to amusing, amazing pet stories.

In '04 I was in a terrible accident. George travels a lot so I stayed with my parents for several months. Mom has a yellow and white Corgie mix - Lucky. I had a black mutt with a white bib and white socks - Sweetie. Sweetie had some Lab in the mix. The dogs got along well. They had lots of room to run and play. The yard was fenced and Dad had taken great care to secure the bottom of the fence.

Dogs will be dogs. One day Lucky and Sweetie managed to get out. Dad called and whistled to no avail. He finally got in his truck and drove through the subdivision in back of their house. No sign of the dogs. Dad stopped to speak to a man working in his yard. Dad asked if he had seen 2 dogs. The man said "Do you mean the black and yellow dogs following your truck?" :eek: Dad was mad but more than that he was embarrassed.

I laughed so hard I hurt myself and had to take pain meds.

gumbo2176
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Gary350 that story about your sister and the cat brought back memories of a similar incident that occurred at my house when I was a kid. One of my cousins came over to play and we were both about 10 or so at the time. We were running around the yard and he saw a couple cats coming out from under the house heading to my neighbors house. The old lady next door would put out food for the feral cats and any strays that happened by and it was getting close to feeding time.

Anyway, he decides to snatch one of the cats up and the only thing he could grab was the cat's tail. Well the cat started to coil around and my cousin started spinning the cat by the tail to keep it from scratching him, then lets go of the tail and the cat flew about 10 ft. away, hit the ground and charged back at him. That cat let loose with a right proper butt kicking on him and scratched him up pretty bad. I remember laughing so hard I could hardly stand up, all the while he's bawling his eyes out and dreading the Dr. Tichenor's my mom so often used for cuts and scrapes.

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applestar
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I might have mentioned this already, but she did it again, so I thought I’d mention it here.

I like to “train” our kitties. Some training are for their benefit, some are for ours, and some are for pure fun. :wink:

Our kitties are not supposed to be on the cushions on the sofa or stay on the arms or back of the sofa, but they are allowed to jump on the arm and walk along the backrest to access a window side table and the windowsill. When someone is sitting on the sofa, our orange tabby walks up to their knees, stands up on her hind legs, and reaches up her paw to demand attention. At which point, the person is expected to pet her, mainly around her head, chin, and neck, and she used to insist on continued attention for much longer than the person had intended.

So I made use of her habit, and every time she reached up with her paw, met her paw with my palm and said “Hi FIVE!” And praised her profusely and pet her. So she learned to raise her paw on MY terms. Once she got the hang of it, I also introduced “DONE” which meant I wasn’t going to ask for the “High Five” anymore and turn my attention elsewhere.

Now, she knows that once I say “Done” she’s not going to get any more attention, and she usually walks a few steps away and lays down facing away but with her ears twitching in my direction in case I might change my mind.


...she came over this morning while I was relaxing on the sofa, so I played “Hi Five” with her, and then said “Done” — and she got what she wanted for as long as I wanted. :D Oh don’t worry, the kitties get plenty of lap time other than on the sofa. :lol: .

thanrose
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Love the high-five. Did you ever see catmantoo on youtube? He's a mostly dog trainer in Australia who adopted a cat he named Didga (short for didgeridoo) and has trained her to skateboard and surf (kinda) and lord it over dogs in his care. He doesn't put out many videos, but when he does they are priceless. Some are instructional, such as how one goes about some of the training. There's one compilation to the tune of "Happy" with the cat and a bunch of dogs playing in the surf.

My last dog lived to be quite elderly, enough so that the vet clinic staff all knew us by sight and would tell other patrons in hushed tones. (I don't talk to strange humans generally, but strange animals are totally cool.) We would do the Vulcan Mind Meld thing once in a while, forehead to forehead. She wasn't much of a conversationalist, but I'd give her commands in conversational tones, often in complex sentences. Sometimes in other languages. As long as the attitude, the specific gesture, and correct word and emphasis were used, it was not a problem.

Pretty sure she thought I was telepathic. She'd stare at the back of my head, and I'd have to guess what she wanted from the way my neck tickled. She would be annoyed with one of the cats and she'd come and get my attention. My father would yell at her and she'd look at me, sending me images of Leia telling Obi-wan, "You're my only hope."

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rainbowgardener
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Our 2 dogs and a cat all love cheese. Anytime the cheese drawer in the fridge opens they all come running (I swear they can tell the difference between the cheese drawer and the vegetable crisper drawer!) . The cat gets her tiny piece handed to her. The dogs have to earn theirs by obeying some commands (just basic sit, up on two legs, lie down). When I have given them as much as I am going to, I tell them all done, no more and they promptly walk away.

The dogs do seem to have pretty much receptive vocabulary. They obey commands like go downstairs, go to bed (which is upstairs), wait, stay, down (don't jump up on visitors).

Ari, the border collie mix (they are all rescues), tends to chew up pillows or anything with stuffing if she is left out while we are gone. So she has to go in the cage. She knows that and trots herself right in as soon as she figures out that we are leaving. She is very tuned in to cues about that. If we put on outdoor shoes, she goes right in the cage. But sometimes she figures it out even before we put on shoes and I really don't know what cues she is responding to. I think she knows the pattern -- go out one last time before we leave, so she goes right in the cage as soon as she comes back in. Sometimes if she puts herself in the cage and then we don't leave right away, she comes back out, but then she nervously goes in and out, while watching us very closely and trying to figure out what we are doing. It's very cute.

imafan26
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I only have two cats now. Usually the male is the one that asks for food and the other just waits. I give them a third of a can in the morning, and they get dry food the rest of the day. I watched the male cat after I filled the bowl with more cat food put his paw in the bowl and pull it toward him....and away from the other cat whose head was in the bowl.

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rainbowgardener
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We had Shibu, the male dog first and he is bigger and older. Then we got Ari, the female. She is very bonded with Shibu and is his little shadow. Everywhere he goes, she goes. She loves to be outdoors and left to her own devices would stay out more. But even if she is in the back of the yard, if Shibu decides to come in, she comes running. He is a watch dog type and barks when anyone walks by in the street, when the mail comes, etc. He also barks outside the door when he wants to come in. Ari almost never barks. She just stands next to Shibu and lets him do the barking for both of them, to get let in. If for some reason he is in and she is out, she still won't bark, just stands there at the door looking pathetic until someone notices her.

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rainbowgardener
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Here's a couple pictures of Ari

Image

This was her watching the Westminster dog show on TV. She was fascinated (Shibu paid no attention).

Image

Ari is a rescue dog, they say "border collie mix." She obviously has some border collie in her. But besides being shorter haired, she has very large stick up ears and that tightly curled tail. I went looking to see what breed of dog could account for that. The closest I found was African basenji hound.

Here's a basenji:
Image

look at the ears and tail!

AND when I found basenji's, I found this: The Basenji is barkless, due to its narrow larynx. As a result, instead of barking, the Basenji vocalizes through yodels — which sound like “baroos” or howls

Ari can bark, but very rarely does. But she does make the baroo sound on two rising notes and a variety of other squeaks and sounds.

So I looked for pictures of basenji-border collie mix dogs. Here's an eg.

Image

What do people think, am I on to something?

gumbo2176
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Our housecat is now 9 years old and has developed a taste for some of the things I grow in the garden, with soybeans being her favorite. After I harvest all the beans, I'll parboil them in heavily salted water for just a couple minutes and put them on a big towel on the table to cool. My cat will meow endlessly until I pop some of the soybeans open and give her the beans out of the pods. She loves edamame and any time my wife or I are eating it, she insists of getting her share. I'm amazed at the amount of soybeans that cat can eat before she gets her fill.

imafan26
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I am thinking Ari might have some kind of spitz like a Samoyed or Husky in the mix. Huskies and Samoyed have thick ears; curled tail. Unless Ari is just plain fat, she looks rather big and muscular for a border collie. A basenji is a small hunting dog and built for speed for small game and rodents they are only 25 lbs or so. Huskies are about the same weight as a border collie. Huskies prefer to howl instead of bark, but most of the husky crosses have the blue eyes and more of the husky coloring. The samoyed collie crosses are look more like Ari.

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rainbowgardener
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Ari is not at all fat and not all that big. In the TV picture, her body is curved around, with her hind legs well to the left of her head, so her trunk is making a C shape. She weighs about 40 #.

I looked at some samoyed- border collie pictures. Pure border collies are long haired as well as being shorter than Ari. Samoyeds are long haired also with very thick, double layer fur. So the samoyed-border collie mixes were mostly much furrier than Ari. Ari not only has much shorter hair, she does not have a thick coat, and definitely not with the under coat. Her skin shows through around her elbows and on her belly. I did find one picture that looked pretty much like her.

Obviously, this isn't a science, unless you get their DNA tested. I have heard you can do that now and they will tell you exactly what breeds are in your dog and in what percentages....

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applestar
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I took a picture of our aging kitty — she’s 16 now — and was looking for an apropos thread to post and stumbled upon this one. WOW, a trip down the memory lanes. :D I ended up reading all of the posts.

Now I’m ready to post my picture :wink:
9ED1337D-3208-4E84-B155-81BDE97CF862.jpeg
I bought our old lady a heated stadium seat cushion. It takes the same battery/power bank(s) I use in the summer for my double fan-cooled vest, so I already had two, and I bought one more higher capacity one in case we ever need to keep the cushion heated 24/7.

She has started showing symptoms that took her sister two years ago — still mild stages and she is still pretty active, if slowed down a bit.

When her sister was sick and after her surgery, we started dressing her in these little shirts made from hand-me-down children size jammy (pajama) pant legs that we cut to length and cut front-leg holes. It was a no-brainer to make more and keep this old lady warmer when it started to get cold and she was curled up tight … and now she also has a warm heated cushion to put her kitty bed on.

The difference in her sleeping posture that shows her comfort level is obvious. :()

imafan26
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Last night the cats were at the door and one cat was hissing at the other. They don't fight much, so this hasn't happened in a while.

My oldest cat will be 18 years old in January. She is in high output renal failure and she is definitely slowing down. I have to brush her, when I can catch her, because she isn't grooming well and there are pieces of fur everywhere. She is hanging out on the stairs almost every day and she doesn't move. Both my cats are dark. Jack is black with just a ring of white fur around his neck and Tootsie is a chimera tortie. I can't see either of them at night on a dark laminate floor and she does not move and expects me to go around her. I am not that agile either.

Jack is 10 years old. and will wind around my feet and I have stepped on him more than a few times. I am no longer apologetic. I have to keep telling him to stay away from my feet.

They are not related but they came from the same feral colony. I've had Tootsie since she was 2 years old and Jack was about 4 months old when I got him.

I am getting forgetful in my old age. I went to a club meeting last week and when I cam home I found I forgot to lock the door and the screen door was open. It is a good thing that my cats usually have no interest at all in going outside.



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