A year after I had to put down my childhood dog my parents decided to get another on the request of my younger brother. I had moved out of the house and he wanted a "dog of his own". They picked up a 1 1/2 year old rescue German Shepard. Spoiler Being a rescue dog she has her quirks, one of them being howling like this whenever she hears a police, firetruck, ambulance, siren etc. Focus: What strange / stupid things do your pets do, if you are like toytoy88 how did that baby skunk work out?
I have a guinea pig that does barrel rolls. He will just be sitting there, and just roll over. Stand there looking shocked for a second, then do it again. It can't be good for his back.
Awesome. Mine managed to work out that the squeak made by the fridge door meant there was a 99% chance of carrot or cucumber, and would therefore be accompanied by the high pitched 'wheeking' of hungry guinea pigs. Also, Molly (guinea pig) lived with Buster (rabbit). I'd give them each a lettuce leaf or something, which Molly would dutifully scury away with. She'd chow down for a couple of seconds before deciding she wanted Busters as well, and would sidle up to him, pull it from his mouth and leg it. Not so bad with a piece of carrot, but with a lettuce leaf? Imagine trying to steal your buddies surfboard by running away with it in your mouth, and you'll have a good idea. Miss them little fellas.
This cat talks like it's possessed. Not my cat, but I like to play that video and watch my cat flip the fuck out trying to figure out who's talking to her.
My dog also does the howling trick every time he hears a siren. It just originated somehow, no idea why except that he is a dog. I always thought all larger dogs did that? One of the more funny quirks is that he will always circle a spot before he takes a shit. I was out jogging with him a bit ago when he suddenly tried to stop. Well I was full on sprinting at the moment so I dragged him a bit with me when I tried to slow down. When I turned around to see what happened, I got to witness my dog attempt to circle/jog/shit. He resembled one of those rotating lawn sprinklers. He seems to utilize that rotation in everything, preparing to sleep? Check. Begging for food? Check. Chasing his tail? Check. Also my dog sleeps in my room, and one of my favorite habits of his is that he nudges me before he sleeps to see if I'm in my bed. Then he circles the floor and falls asleep.
I have a Yellow Naped Amazon who, aside from his 250 word vocabulary and his uncanny ability to say the wrong things at the right moments, loves to terrorize my two dogs. He's bitten both of them multiple times despite their best efforts to get away. It's hilarious watching two dogs scramble their way out of the back door when the bird gets out of his cage.
I got my dog almost a year ago from the shelter. She's a great dog, housebroken, knows her basic commands, rarely barks, just about the perfect dog. She does have one quirk though. She's deathly afraid of the dishwasher. I cannot figure out why, she's not scared of the vacuum, washing machine, sink, etc. that make somewhat similar noises. Its so bad that if I open the dishwasher when she's in the kitchen, she runs and hides. I try to only run the dishwasher when I can take her out of the apartment with me, otherwise she hides in the back of the closet and shakes with her heart pounding. I cannot explain why, but ever since I got her, she's been scared of the dishwasher.
On a similar note, my dog won't come into our kitchen when we're doing dishes. She absolutely HATES getting sprayed by water hoses. When she was a puppy, I pulled the ol' 'rubber band the sink hose and squirt the wife' trick. My wife was pretty quick to get out of the way and the bulk of the water got our then-9-week-old boxer. Ever since that day, anytime that sink goes on she runs to another room and won't come out until the sink is off again.
My chocolate lab has literally jumped out of a moving car, but is scared shitless of the vacuum. As you may have read in the Rant and Rave thread, he's also literally launched a laptop into my face, drawing blood over my eye. I also have a husky like the video. She is a howler as well.
My cat will sit outside the bathroom door meowing loudly and pawing at the door until I open it. He will then, instead of coming in, trot away into the next room or beyond. If I close the door again, he will come back, rowring loudly until I open the door, so on and so on. He will not do this if anyone else is in the bathroom and he will not do this if the door is closed and no one is in there. He only does this to me.
My AmStaff Layla likes napping in my bed at any point of the day whether Im around or not. She trouts upstairs into my room onto my bed. It is my first go to spot now when I need to find her. She also has the uncanny ability to recognize the sound of the rustling plastic baggies we keep our cheese in. She could be out cold napping in my room and be downstairs begging for cheese in .0002 seconds. I think it's kind of common but she also doesn't stop rustling around until I let her under the covers to curl up next to my feet when we go to sleep. My roommates dog was the same way. My other dog, a Pomeranian mix, goes wild for treats and foods by doing little romping circles in the same spot. She also likes to beg to go out, pee, stand around doing nothing for five minute, and then bark five minutes after Ive taken her in to go back out and shit. It's pretty well timed. She too does little jogging circles right before she needs to poo.
My dog, Larry, is a Lakeland terrier. He is really fucking strange, which I partly attribute to him eating some slug poison and almost dying when he was about 1-2 years old (although a lot of his quirks started before then). Anyway, he loves water. As in he will bite the water in his bowl. He will stare at it like it is about to run away, then when someone walks past he will stick his head in and push the bowl around. We used to just give him an empty 2L ice cream container for his bowl but he destroyed so many that we eventually just got him a proper bowl. He will also stare at you and do this weird breathing/snoring thing when he wants something. This something often spraying a bit of water out of a water bottle into the air. He will jump about a meter in the air and bite the water. When the game is finished he goes around licking up the drops that he missed. He chases the hose for hours, dips his head into the water like an old man when he swims and has been know to bark at the rain. When my dad sneezes Larry will run from anywhere in the house to bark at him, causing my dad to mutter something about getting a sack and a brick. He is a bit weird with his eating habits. We used to just give him some dog food outside, but had to stop that because he would spend all the time chasing birds away. And of course, when he was chasing the birds away, other birds would come along and eat his food. He has some things round the wrong way. For example, he hates fireworks but instead of running away and hiding he will bite the sparks. Same thing with the lawnmower. But when it comes to cats, he is either indifferent or scared of them. I wasn't there to see it, but apparently he was attacked by quails. My old dog, Buster (miniature schnauzer) , was a bit strange too. He got his name because he would always escape from our house/property. No fences could hold him. Eventually we just let him roam around town and he became quite well known. On rubbish day he would go down to the main street and gorge himself on food that restaurants etc. had thrown out. When he came home he would stink and be incredibly full. Right next door to my family home is a primary school. All the teachers and kids knew and liked him and he sat in on my brothers class once or twice. Occasionally there would be a sausage sizzle to raise a bit of money at school. So Buster would stand around and wait for some kid to drop his sausage. As he got older he got lazier. He would still break out, but it would be to lie in the middle of the road outside my house. The road wasn't very busy, but some woman hit him one day, "I thought he was a sack" she said. He made a recovery that time and I don't think he was badly injured. But he didn't learn, and continued to sleep on the road when nobody was at home to stop him. He was hit again a few years later and had to be put down.
My doberman sings on command, and will try to harmonize if someone else sings or plays an instrument (he can actually hit C pretty consistently). My labrasomething puppy doesn't seem to know how to whine. She makes this weird bullfrog sound instead, which was a relief at first but I honestly can't decide after 8 months if I like it better than the standard dog whine. Her and my roommate's dog also do the Chewbacca talking, but she only does it if he starts it while they're battling...
My dad has a doberman, and if you snap your fingers at him, he'll collapse onto the ground as though his legs don't have any bones in them. They've had him since he was 10 weeks old, and nobody taught him this, so they have no idea why he does it.
We have a chocolate lab rescue dog and he howls at sirens and train whistles, too. Also, he won't go anywhere near the pool. The mini schnauzer thinks he's a rottweiller.
My old dog (the black one) would rarely eat unless me or my brother were kneeling on the floor next to her bowl with her. I'm not sure what her deal was, but I think she just liked bragging that she had food because when my aunt and uncle would come by with their cocker spaniel, my dog would run to her bowl and eat the whole thing, then come beg me to give her more.
My dachsund mutt rescue tries to growl, but everytime she sneers her upper lip she sneezes. Imagine a dog growling while sneezing at the same time.
I had a big mutt who weighed about 130lbs. Smart dog, well behaved, fun. One big oddity though, he liked wresting with me or my friends, but you had to be careful: if you ended up on the ground he would pin you down and hump you, doggy boner and all. Of course I ever set anyone up for it, no...
My new dog is kind of retarded. She's 3 and still hasn't figured out how to jump on the couch yet. She'll put her front paws on the couch cushions and hop with her hind legs. It hasn't clicked for her that she needs to use her front legs to gain momentum to hop up. So instead she hops up and down and whimpers until somebody lifts her up.