Dogs, cats and other pets and animals

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Please post some anecdote, story, comment, theory, research, insight, sharing, musing, question, memory, whatever you feel like, about your pet's or any other animal's behavior / things they do/did, like/don't like.

I'm depressed and threads about animals make my day.

Also, for relevance to this forum, I claim that observing animals' behavior has helped me a lot to understand people in general.

And by the way, why do dogs smell each other's genitals when they meet on the street sometimes? Does someone know?

I hate animals as pets. =[

Wild animals, however, are quite interesting but I've never took any specific interest in them.

I have a problem with my wife's 7 Kg terrier dog, if I mention the word "walk" he gets excited and thinks it is time for me to walk him. Also if I mention any related words or phrases.

such as

"Around the block"
"Constitutional"

I am in an "arms race" with the dog, I have to keep thinking of new expressions which mean going for a walk which my wife can understand but the dog can not. But he quickly learns what the new phrases are. Each time the dog hears a phrase which might mean anything to do with walking he gets excited and demands his walk.

LOL woodpecker, how cute. Is it because he doesn't get out of the house enough?

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sOyP4LTGv2I[/youtube]

I love cats and dogs. Unfortunately my dog hates cats, his former owners made him do so. Well, I have named him Bjarne, that's a common male name where I live. He is so good in understanding human language, that I have to be careful to what I say. One day, i sat and watched TV, he suddenly began to bark, and looked at the window. 15 seconds later I saw the car of my buddy in the window. I live by a road that has a quite big traffic, and my buddy drives a very common volvo, but Bjarne sorted him out long before he actually came close to my house.
As for your question, I don't know for sure. But a male dog can sence when a female dog is ready to mate, from a distance like one kilometer. Guess the sniffing thing has to do with that, it's all about information.

Awwwww sgrannel, so cute! Is it yours? And does he like to be stroked?

mozes, Bjarne is amazing how he understands you when you speak. I could see it in his eyes in the video. Even though he chose to do something else from what you asked him, LOL

I believe it's because, in many species of animals, there are scent glands around that area - so best place for a dog to head for to check out a new acquaintance!

Cats, for instance, have scent glands around the face (you can observe them rubbing their faces against things in their territory to mark them - including people). A cat getting to know a new cat is almost guaranteed to sniff around the other's face.

My dog has a plastic toy rock, so whenever I say 'rock' or 'where is your rock?' she will run outside and bring it to me.
I used to have a dog that knew what 'want to go for a walk meant.' I could even say 'want to go' and he will get excited. The dog I have now thinks when I put on shoes means I'm taking her for a walk. The funniest thing she does is hide when I start to run water in the sink I usually bathe her in. And when it is time for her bath she cowers right at the end of the backyard.

My cats are just annoying. One cat doesn't come inside when it's time to feed him and when I go outside to pick him up he will run away from me. My other cat steals from the bin and sleeps on a bread cutting board.

Am certain that Biscuit [cat in avatar] would be diagnosed as autie whenever they get around to adding autism to the kitty dsm [they will do seeing as ocd and depression are there].
this is a basic part of her day:
She is outside pooing in the middle of the garden [she always poos in the middle of the garden],she sees goldiecat having a wee and stands there watching [she always watches other cats when they're having a poo/wee],goldie will run at her and swipe dragging out a tuft of fur but biscuit seems to instantly forget-she constantly tries to make furrends with goldie and will go up and roll on her back showing her belly to her all the time,she will do this to any cat-and follows them around,she obviously meets the social impairment criteria.
whilst outside,she has many extreme sensory setoffs-the feel from wind being one,helicopters,fireworks,
childrens voices,just any noise really-she will then try to get inside very quickly or dive for the shed.
during fireworks she has shutdowns where she drops to the floor and seems to rock slightly,she squishes herself up tightly.
next,she gets inside the kitchen,and goes to the same spot she always does when she comes in-the food cubord.

she begs her humans for food either by doing her infamous maine coon mewing or padding a humans feet,and tries a game where she will stand behind a human and let out a scream as if she had been walked on-am have seen her do this to other humans and its obvious she hasnt been touched but the human will give her what gets called 'sympathy food'.
She will look for food even if she isnt hungry out of routine-she always does it in this order.

next,she will scratch to get in the front room,so dad goes upstairs to get the keys for it-unlocks it and she walks in-walks all around the edge of the room then comes out,leaving dad going on about how he had to go and get the keys just for that.

Next,she runs up stairs and looks for goldie-does her friend making thing again,comes out friendless,slightly furrless and jumps on her cat tree.
After a while she will come off her tree,and wedge herself under the radiator-she loves the pressure from squeezing into tight places.
then she wants to go out,and it starts all over again.

she can't catch things properly [another sign of autism? or as? crappy motor skills] and ends up clapping instead.

She has extreme sensory problems with being groomed but loves the feel of a zoom groom brush in her coat,though she will not tolerate her belly being brushed,and has a meltdown if anyone tries.

She can watch running water for ages,has a thing for it.

One of my cats is an Abyssinian-and-something mix, very enthusiastic and athletic. We tried him in a harness and leash and he was ok with it, so we walk him outside every day. His walk is around 4 pm, but he starts getting excited about 1 o'clock. He chirps and sings and is my absolute best buddy till he gets his walk. We also have a kitten (now about 6 months old). Very sweet. I got a stomach virus over Christmas and as I was barfing in the commode, she would stand behind me with her paws on my shoulders. She stayed beside me for hours, just keeping me company. Never had a cat do that before.

I worked in an animal shelter; I have a million stories.

There were these two cats - brothers - who I got to be good friends with. When I showed up in the morning, they wanted to say hello. But if I didn't greet them within a certain amount of time, then later they wanted nothing to do with me.

There was another cat who liked to escape from the kennel room into the hallway. She had the magical ability to always be just inside whichever door you tried to open. But after escaping, she didn't run or hide. I think she enjoyed being caught and carried back in.

Then there was the little troublemaker who was a complete litterbox snob. If the litterboxes were not cleaned to her satisfaction (and it was impossible to keep up), she would wait for us to take the lid off the giant bucket of clean litter, and then sneak in and use that.

Never a dull moment at that place.

I will post some but for now lets just say humans would be better off if we smelled each other more often than just accepting verbal communications.

Greentea, here is a picture of my puppy Doodle. Looking at it always cheers me up

Animalistic behaviour topic

My dog Sam (who has cancer) is resting at a relative's because he cannot climb the stairs to go out at my place right now. I see him on weekends.

I have Woody right now (10.5 year old cat) because the Lab at my ex-husband's place is allergic to him. Both pets are fine apart. I now have Woody permanently and I hope to get Sam back in the spring when he is stronger.

Woody loves to play cat hockey. I make a piece of his kibble zoom across the floor and he chases it and then eats it. Sometimes he catches it while he crouches. The pupils in his cat eyes get really big when he concentrates on catching the piece of kibble with his front paws. He is an orange and white tabby.

Dogs need a lot of walks as they are very social, yet Sam does not like other dogs! He seems to think he is the only dog in the world who has the right to walk around the neighbourhood.