Pet Stories That Illustrate The Oddness (And Brilliance) Of Our Furry Friends

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Someone remind us why we let animals live in our homes, again? Oh, right. They’re fuzzy and cuddly and loyal, and they love us. At least, some of them do—the other ones are cats.

At any rate, pets are entertaining. Just go to a subdued party and look at what everyone’s doing. They’re looking at the dog, right? But whether you’re a cat person, a dog person, a cow person, or even a rat person—and now we feel like we’re taxonomizing lycanthropy—all of our pets have one thing in common: They do some really strange stuff.

We found stores that are so weird, so perplexing, even, at times, so creepy, that they’ll make you question your decision to live with animals…at least until the next time you need a snuggle. These are from Reddit; we’ve edited them for grammar and readability.

You don’t have to be smart to be a good best friend.

Some dogs are super-intelligent. They sniff out trouble, they bring you the newspaper, they might even save lives. These dogs…are not them.

“I pointed and yelled ‘squirrel,’ [and] then my dog ran in the opposite direction, straight into the lake…,” wrote Early_Grace.

“My dog likes to dig holes until she finds a worm. Then [she] barks at it until someone drags her inside,” wrote taykayzoe.

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Then there’s this story of a basset hound who didn’t realize that her greatest wish had already come true.  

“My girlfriend’s basset really liked when I came to her house, and would start howling every time she heard the double beep of my car’s remote lock,” wrote tower_dweller.

“Fast forward a couple of years: We (me and the girlfriend) are married, and the basset has just moved with us to our new home. I was taking her (the dog) on-leash to inspect her new territory when my car (forgot who was driving it) pulled up to park.

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“And then came the beep beep noise.

“My dog was beside herself with excitement because I was coming to visit. Nothing I did could convince her that I was actually standing beside her and holding her leash. So, I asked my wife to hold the leash, walked around to the back of the house, and then back from the direction of the garage. [The] dog was finally convinced I was there.”

We’re not going to call these sweet doggos dumb. That’d be unfair. But let’s just say that they aren’t pick No. 1 for the local constabulary’s K9 school.

If you could see into the minds of these dogs, well, you’d probably regret it.

“My dog has been nursing a biscuit that I gave to him two days ago, carrying it gently around the house wherever he goes,” wrote musicalrapture. “He’s set it on a pillow on the couch, on our bed, and the latest was atop a shirt on the floor. Not sure why this one is so treasured. There’s a whole box of them in the pantry.”

Dogs can get pretty particular about their toys. Just ask this next Reddit user.

“I gave my dog one of the cats’ toys (which was really a dog toy in the first place) which they never played with,” wrote SmoSays. “He saw me take it out of their toy box and give it to him.

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“Since that very day, it has become his absolute most treasured toy ever. He takes it with him to bed, tries to bring it on rides and walks, and if we are up and about around the house, he follows with it in his mouth. He takes it to his food dish, where he sets it aside until he’s done eating, sets it by the door when he goes potty, etc.

“It’s like it’s [an] heirloom and he’s honored the cats had bestowed it upon him.”

In addition to their favorite toys, most dogs have a favorite lie-down spot: on a rug at your feet, or on your fresh-cleaned bedspread. Here’s a dog who picked an unconventional space to call her own.

“For whatever reason, about a month ago my dog started sitting on top of the couch,” wrote Pohatu_. “I don’t mean sitting where you’re supposed to sit. She climbs up to the highest point and plops down.

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iStock.com/nathanaparise

“We’ve had her for seven years, and she never did this until recently. She’s the laziest Shih-Tzu— and dog—I’ve ever seen, so when she sits up there for long periods of time, the cushion pushes outwards and she gets stuck behind the cushion with only her face poking out. It was very weird the first time, but now it’s basically a daily thing.”

Cat behavior makes even the strangest dog look well-adjusted.

“My old cat Sam would gag whenever I was unrolling Sellotape,” wrote themadhatter85.

For our U.S.-based readers, “Sellotape” is the British equivalent of “Scotch tape.” It’s a genericized trademark describing pressure-sensitive adhesive tape. This cat would gag if her owner was unrolling tape.

“He would make no attempt to leave the room even though he clearly didn’t like it.”

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Of course he didn’t leave the room. He clearly expressed his distaste via his gag. Meanwhile, our next cat has a creepy appointment to keep.

“One of my cats, Tim, stares at the spice rack every night at exactly 8:00,” wrote muse-esum. “Every night.”

Cats have their obsessions. For one, it’s the spice rack. For the next, well, you’ll see.

“If my cat is anywhere near the toilet when it flushes, he’ll get up on two legs, bracing against the rim with his front paws, and stare down intently into the vortex of water in the bowl with what I can only describe as an expression of awe and reverence until it calms down again,” wrote captainthomas. “This has been going on for 11 years, and it still blows his tiny feline mind every time.”

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Like all of us, cats are creatures of habit. Their habits just don’t make any sense.

“My cat wants me to kick her food bowl before she will eat from it,” wrote Icegiant3227. “She will meow at me until I go kick her bowl. It’s funny, weird, and sometimes annoying.”

You know that embarrassed look cats get when they fail a jump?

We love that look. Too bad we missed the following moment.

“My cat wanted to jump up onto the window sill, which is not very high of a leap, but my cat is fat and lazy,” wrote Extrasherman. “I’m sitting on the couch and I see him pre-jump-wiggle and make his decision.

“Well, I was in the way and he tried to leap over me, onto the couch, and then up to the window. He missed his mark, scratched the s*** out of my leg, and plowed face first into the wall beneath the window with a thunderous boom. He quickly ran away and I didn’t see him for hours.”

They say cats are loners.

We think they need us just as much as we need them. They just have peculiar ways of showing it. For instance…

“One of my cats likes to get my attention by meow/whining, which means I am supposed to follow him,” wrote a Reddit user whose username has since been deleted. “When I do, he will look back every few seconds to make sure that I am. It is usually to ‘show’ me something that he finds unsatisfactory.

“Usually, it’s the state of the litter boxes, as he has to share with his two brothers. Once, however, I got a new shower curtain in my bathroom. He repeatedly led me to where I had balled up the old shower curtain (near the trash in my bathroom), and would cry. Even after the old shower curtain was long gone, he would lead me to the bathroom, stare at the new shower curtain, then look at me and meow in protest.”

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Of course, even when you can tell what your cats want from you, the why remains a mystery.

“My cat has a weird thing for the fridge,” wrote a Reddit user whose username has since been deleted. “As soon as he hears it open, he comes charging into the kitchen and tries very hard to jump in before the door gets closed.

“A few times, I’ve accidentally shut him in there because I didn’t see him hop in. One time it was for a whole day because I left for work. I got home, and he didn’t even care—he was just lying on the shelf in there, half-asleep.”

The pet world isn’t all about cats and dogs. What about bunnies?

“[After] Halloween 2007, my rabbit, Twitcher, hops onto the couch, puts front paws on the arm, and steals a fun-sized Snickers bar from the candy dish,” wrote punxerchick. “[He] proceeds to do a victory lap around the entire apartment at half-speed with the damn candy bar stuffed in his tiny mouth, shaking his gray head and flopping his ears every few feet. I really felt bad when I had to take it away. [I] felt like he earned it.”

That sounds fair. Then again, who can tell what kind of sense of justice a rabbit has? They do stuff like this:

“The most baffled I’ve been with any of my rabbits was when one got caught by his leg in an escape attempt,” wrote CooperArt. “He was hanging, upside-down, by his foot. I freaked out, worried that he was dead or something. Nope, just asleep. And apparently kinda mad at me for waking him up. (He regained use of his foot the next day.) So glad that all turned out okay.”

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This is not to say that every bunny rabbit is a silly beast. One Reddit user tells a story that suggests there’s a lot more going on in a bun-bun’s brain than you might expect.  

“My rabbit Lassied me,” wrote Kevin_Uxbridge. “[I was] typing in my office, and one of our two rabbits hopped in, stared at me for a solid 20 seconds, then hopped out. Kinda weird, but I thought no more of it until he came back. Rabbits are sweet but kinda dumb, but he really seemed to have something on his mind.

“‘What’s the matter, boy?’ [I asked.] ‘Is Timmy stuck in a well?’ I wasn’t really expecting a laugh, but still found it odd that he just stared. Then [he] hopped away again. This time I followed him to the next room.

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“Turns out our other rabbit was stuck behind a dresser. She’d slipped behind it, but it was impossible to get out, and [she] seemed a bit frantic back there. I shifted the dresser, she hopped out, and they touched noses [and] hopped away.

“He never did anything like that again, but I’m convinced that he figured out that he needed help, so he came and got me. By rabbit standards, that’s like catching your dog doing calculus.”

When you need a little love in your life, there are always rats, too.

“I had a rat that loved to bury her little face in my ear and have a snooze,” wrote SmoSays. “I’d hear nothing but rat snores, and if I’d try to move, she’d grab my earlobe to hold me in place. Like? How is that even comfortable?”

We’d take that as a compliment. Maybe the SmoSays’ brains are really comfortable. We’re not sure how to feel about this next story, though.

“My rat will pry open my mouth with his little needle claws and try to stick his whole head inside,” wrote ScreamingHairball. “He once bit my tooth. It was a weird experience for both of us.”

Most pet-owners stick to dogs or cats…though sometimes with regret.

“I have a tortoiseshell cat,” wrote CooperArt (yes, the same CooperArt who watched a bunny take an upside-down nap). “Mom told me as soon as I brought her home that she was going to be trouble.

“She likes to smack people over the head from the stairs. She and I regularly get into standoffs where I have a hand over her head and she’s meowing loudly because she wants to bite me. She’s literally leapt at my face. She drags corn out of the trash and plays with a stuffed animal that is about her size. Throws it around. She’ll try and drink from the sink (hasn’t mastered this one).”

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“Nothing has baffled me as much as this morning when I called her over and filled her food bowl. Her response was to arch her back, stick out all her claws, and hop away.”

In the end, though, it’s always worth it to have a good dog by your side.

Dogs are more than just good friends. They have senses we don’t have. Sometimes, they seem downright supernatural.

“My dog knew I was in labor before I did,” wrote lenachristina. “She was normally a super chill dog. We’d be home for 45 minutes before she’d come out to see us. She’d get some pets and then find some corner to snooze some more.

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“Well, about a week before my due date, I came home from the doctor and she was super-Velcro dog from the minute I walked in the door. She would not leave my side and was kind of nervous and antsy. This continued through the night and into the next day. I thought maybe she was sick or something, but there was no indication anything was wrong.

“Well, sure enough, my water broke later that next day, contractions started a couple of hours later, and I had my baby in my arms about seven hours after that, a week before his due date. Guess my dog knew more than she was letting on!”

Here’s one that’ll keep us up at night, dog or no-dog.

“Once, my dog was sleeping on my bed with me, and in the middle of the night, around 3:30 or 4:00 a.m., I wake up to loud noises outside,” wrote Katalinya. “I was extremely quiet, just listening, mostly to hear if it was an animal like a bear or raccoon sniffing through our trash out front (it was trash day), when my dog sits up and is extremely still.”

“Usually he likes to stick his head out the window right next to my bed since it’s near a wall and he likes to be nosy and know what’s going on outside. That night, though, he got up and stood over my body, and before I could even sit up … [he] laid down on top of my body.”

“He is kind of a big husky. Anyways, he starts to suffocate me a bit with his whole weight being on top of mine, and I start to move my arms to start pushing him off me when he starts growling ever so softly.

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“I stopped moving my hands and just laid there. He kept growling. The noises stopped as fast as they came, but he laid there for a good five minutes before he immediately got off me and walked back to the feet of my bed and went back to sleep.

“It gave me an extreme adrenaline rush, but I trusted my dog sensed something I obviously didn’t.”

Then there’s the self-appointed defender of fish.

“My dog lets us know when our fish are in danger,” wrote HMSBannard. “She sees herself as Guardian of the Pond and will fetch us for any minor goings-on. She has alerted us to: dead fish floating in the water, the electric fence being cut, a live fish [that] was flopping and gasping for air, a [fallen] rock [blocking the waterfall], and many more.”

“She loves that pond.”

Some dogs are too smart for their own good—or our comfort.

“I have a husky, and I was brushing her one day (because it’s so freaking necessary), wrote d4ndelion08. “I went inside to get a drink of water. Before I started brushing her, she had dug a pretty decent hole near our tire swing. When I got back outside with my glass of water I found her burying something in the hole. It was the dog brush. …Too damn smart.”

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