Share Stories About Your Pets Past or Present

When my brother, sister, and I were in grade school (appx. ages 7-10), we got a cat after my parents caved to my sister's incessant begging. "Cotton" was OK as cats go, but one day my brother and I noticed his eyebrows and whiskers were a bit shaggy.

We got the idea to trim them to a "neat, proper" length. As you can imagine, boys + scissors + squirming cat = hack job. One side of whiskers was cut off and the other had one or two barely cut. Because of that, the cat's sense of perception was off, and the poor thing stumbled around for several days until it got used to the new "arrangement" of its sensors.

Needless to say, neither parents nor sister were pleased with my brother and me.

Epilogue: Cotton didn't last long... he was "taken to a farm" after the second time he crapped in my sister's bed, about 8 months after his arrival. (I'm guessing my dad, with his farm/woods upbringing, dispatched the cat in the back woods with a .22, but no definitive answer was ever admitted or discovered.)

My dog ran away.

my dog ran away so i married another one

My dog Buddy enjoys table scraps. It is the weirdest thing.

raised a calf years ago. named her parmesan. delicious.

raised a second calf. her name was parmesan the second. she too was delicious.

was looking at some old family 8mm recently and there was film of me feeding old parmesan (or parmesan the second, hard to tell).

Nice, any stories from normal people?

My dog humped my leg yesterday. My dog is humping my leg right now. Do you want a future story, too?

Uh-oh. Now I have to worry whether I'll be categorized as "normal." Here goes...

We had a basset hound, Uncle Joe, who lived a full life with us. With basset hounds, you must keep in mind they're essentially life support systems for a good nose and not much else. Uncle Joe was a lovable but slightly dim oaf, and passive-aggressively stubborn.

Bassets have a reputation for "counter cruising." It's an amazing skill. It's tough to reckon a sub-36-inch-long body with near-zero leaping ability being able to successfully grab something twice its body distance and at an odd angle. The most memorable incident was Joe taking and wolfing down a full package of Twizzlers licorice, which was tucked (we thought safely) as far away as possible. The dog pooped red for three days.

And once, during a walk on a park forest trail (which had no leash requirement), we heard Joe giving his "alarm bay" in the distance. We trotted over to where we heard him and came upon him looking confused as a young couple was hurriedly putting clothes back on. Luckily we were all old enough to know about "the birds and the bees" and had a good laugh over the incident. Joe was befuddled by the whole scene-- grunting, violent humans, us not in flight-or-flight mode, laughter....

I had a shepherd mix that just crossed the bridge last week. She used to go everywhere with me.

One time I stopped by the drive through at Wendy's to pick up a couple of burgers, then went to the movie rental place to get some movies. I made the mistake of leaving the dog in the car with the bag of burgers for about 5 minutes.

I get back to the car, the wrapper for one of the burgs is open perfectly on my seat, with nothing but the lettuce left over. But the dog had generously left me the other burg in its entirety.

I always wondered what made the dog stop at one burger?

hawkrunner wrote:

raised a calf years ago.

raised a second calf.

We all regularly raise a couple of calves here at LR.

To Here Is One's question "I always wondered what made the dog stop at one burger?"

Answer - you got back to the car in time.

Speaking of things dogs like to eat: My friends had a beagle that ate a popped black balloon they had out for a Halloween party. Day or so later, he poops it out, then tries to eat it again. this dog would also eat the stringy fibers of his pull toy - you can imagine what came out later, usually strung together.

My dog likes to eat rocks, and "poopcicles" in winter. He also likes lettuce and a wide variety of vegetables. The only things he ignores are mushrooms. My husband's dog is the "counter cruiser" She once ate a roasted fryer I'd left out to pick meat off of - the only thing left was the rib cage and a bay leaf. She's also eaten an entire chocolate cake. It's amazing she's still alive.

In ~1991 when I was still a kid, we had two parakeets, a large parrot, and dog.

One day, the large parrot attacked one of the parakeets and chewed off one set of his toes. The parakeet survived but had difficulty grasping branches with his one remaining foot.

About a year later, this parakeet's arthritis in his one foot became so bad that he couldn't stand on branches anymore. He just sat on the floor, and wasn't doing well.

We decided to put him down. Before taking him to the vet, my brother was holding the injured parakeet next to the healthy parakeet to allow them to say their goodbyes. He accidentally let go of the injured parakeet, which proceeded to fly erratically around the house as my brother chased it.

Our dog went into a frenzy, also chasing the injured parakeet. The dog beat my brother to the bird and grabbed it in his mouth and started running around with it.

Now my brother was chasing the dog (with bird in mouth). My brother dove head-first at the dog to grab it and force the release of the bird. But because of a twist of fate and bad timing, the dog released the bird at the last second before my brother landed on the ground, and my brother's hand came down directly onto the bird's head, crushing its against a heating vent built-in to the floor and thus killing it.

Saved us a trip to the vet.

This story made my day, in sick sort of way. I really thought the dog was going to eat the bird. Is your brother emotionally scarred now?

this just happened:

my 7month old black lab was just outside eating deer poop. why would she do that? is it normal? she chews and eats many things, but poop?> really?

I can't stop laughing, picturing the scene of the dog somehow grabbing this bird in his mouth, and everyone freaking out chasing after it.

hawkrunner wrote: is it normal? she chews and eats many things, but poop?> really?

Yes. Totally normal. Gross, but normal. For dogs.

Mrs. M wrote:

hawkrunner wrote: is it normal? she chews and eats many things, but poop?> really?

Yes. Totally normal. Gross, but normal. For dogs.

Dogs love poop. Mine rolls in it then eats it. It's lovely. Horse poop, deer poop, raccoon poop, who knows what it all is.

Every time he goes out the front door of our house, he tries to go to the neighbor's yard where the cats live. He is not looking for the cats. He is looking for their poop. He goes over into the pine straw and leaves of the flower beds and noses around like a hog digging up roots. When you call his name, his head pops up....chewing.

Once when he was still pretty young and was just potty trained - we thought - we left him inside to run to the store. We came home and there was an odd smell in the apartment. I started playing with the dog and he burped. Oh dear god he burped right in my face. It was the single most foul thing I have ever smelled in my life, including the bloated dead rotting bodies of animals I have come across over the years. I almost vomited right there. In my effort to get some air I noticed the brown mark on the carpet. The damn dog had shit on the floor and HE ATE HIS OWN SHIT!!!!! Then burped it in my face...

Forgot this story about Uncle Joe, our late basset hound:

We once brought him along to the annual holiday gathering at Grandma C's (paternal grandmother). As we we waited 'round the tree to open presents, Uncle Joe (our dog, not a real uncle) trotted through the middle of the room with a used feminine hygiene product in his mouth, as pleased as he could be. (He must have fished it out of the bathroom garbage.)

After looks and twitters by everyone of the "Is that what I THINK that is in his mouth?" type, my grandmother, to try to be funny and prod one of our family to action, looked right at my dad and stated loudly, "Like father, like son." Much laughing and chatter ensued, as my grandma got it back in spades. Dad: "Are you saying I do THAT?!" My brother: "Yuck! I don't eat used tampons." Mom: "Shush! Don't talk like that!" "But Grandma said..."

In the background during this discussion, we hear growling and doggie footfalls as another brother tried to chase down Joe and delicately remove the item from the dog's mouth.

A family gathering to remember.

CCMom wrote:When our dogs find rabbit poop outside and eat it, my husband refers to it as "bunny candy".

Ha! We call the bunny and deer poop truffles. In summer there are piles around that the dogs find, but when the weather turns cold, they start digging around looking for them. Hence, digging for truffles.