If you’ve ever had a pet, what was your coolest, craziest, or weirdest pet moment?
And if you’ve NEVER had a pet, what was your coolest, craziest, or weirdest animal encounter?
If you’ve ever had a pet, what was your coolest, craziest, or weirdest pet moment?
And if you’ve NEVER had a pet, what was your coolest, craziest, or weirdest animal encounter?
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I’ve had some funny incidents with animals over the years, including the degus who would regularly dangle their tails out of the cage till the cat took a flying leap for them, then pull their tails in just in time for the cat to smash face-first into the side of the cage; the degus “laughed” every time. Speaking of cats, there was the one who ignored the holiday bird in favour of getting his head stuck in a brandy snifter holding cranberry sauce; the one who bundled a young star-nosed mole up in a sweater after finding it in our living room; Walker, who would walk upright on his hind legs to get his head in the palm of anyone standing, wanting pats; the college cat who treed neighbourhood dogs and always took the elevator.
The scariest animal encounter I ever had was more about *being* the animal. When I was young we lived in a heavily wooded rural area, and were often told, “stay out of the woods while the trees turn colours,” and “mind your elders”. My (city-dwelling) great aunt decided she wanted me to show her the autumn view from the top of the mountain behind our house. She was sure that “stay out of the woods” really meant “… unless you are with an adult”, so up we climbed, pausing to rest about halfway. Now, I *knew* why it was a bad idea for my pudgy little aunt in her brown coat and me with my long dark hair to be there,let alone stop, and sure enough … bang! A bullet buried in a tree no more than a handspan from us. I have never seen anyone move as fast as that woman, running down the trail and in our back door, although I wasn’t far behind! My parents asked what she expected, going into the woods like that … during bear season.
I’ve had cats all my life and am curently blessed/cursed with two Simease mixes. Skander, slim, graceful, and occasionally loud, is a poet and a gentlecat. Shiloh, on the other hand, is a rogue and a ruffian. He’s a big, burly cat and his size makes it pretty obvious one of his parents was a Maine Coon cat.
One morning, when I slept in because I had a pretty bad cold, Shiloh woke me by standing on my stomach and demanding breakfast. I asked him to let me sleep just another half hour and he hopped up onto the headboard where, I hoped, he would relax. I was drifting off again when I heard a scraping sound and the, fortunatly empty, stainless steel water bottle fell off the headboard and conked me on the head. I got up and fed him.
Never one to learn quickly, I tried sleeping in the next morning. I heard the scraping noise again and opened my eyes to the sight of Shiloh shoving the water bottle toward the edge of the headboard. This time it was full and might have knocked me unconcious.
I keep a bowl of cat kibble on the headboard now.
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