I am not a pet psychic, but I generally have a good idea what my dog is thinking. Dogs, which is the pet I grew up with, are fairly transparent and if you pay attention, you can figure them out rather easily. They are simple creatures who want love, attention, food, water and the occasional walk or trip outside. Some want a little more, but those are the basics.
Cats, on the other hand, are creatures from an alternate dimension. Websites are devoted to the strange and unusual behavior of cats–they are enigmas wrapped up in riddle inside a mystery or whatever that quote is. In my house, however, we prefer to call Almighty Isis, our Lynx-point Siamese, the comic relief.
The funniest part? She’s not really funny. She doesn’t have to actually DO anything to make us laugh. She can just be sitting at us, staring, or as she is now, perched on the side of my desk like a sphinx and I think she’s hilarious.
We’ve had her for over a year now and we still think everything she does from pawing at the strings to my jacket or crawling into the See’s Candies bag is the most gut-splitting thing ever. (Actually, I wish I had a picture of the cat in a bag…it was crazy.) I’m sure our dog, who is cute as a button, is completely tired of my daughter and I summoning the other to whatever room we’re in because the cat has done something that must be witnessed…like unexpectedly burrow under the sheets in my bed or climb up the porch screen in an attempt to catch a squirrel.
It just never gets old!
(BTW, the dog is at a distinct disadvantage. Not only is she ten years old, but she’s a dachshund. She can’t really climb on things or, because of her nails on my wood floors, pop up when we least expect her. But she is really, really cute and the sweetest dog ever. But she’s the straight man, no doubt about it.)
So…do your pets crack you up with stuff that probably wouldn’t be funny to anyone else? Or are they really funny?
And I can’t help but wonder what the heck the cat is thinking when we’re laughing hysterically at her non-antic antics.
FYI: the cat just tried to climb the ladder that I use to change the light bulbs. It’s folded up against the wall. She didn’t quite make it, but is unharmed. Daughter and I? Can’t…breathe…laughing…
The winner’s of Janelle’s Monday giveaway are the following names. Please contact me at janelledenison @ sbcglobal.net and let me know which book you’d like from me!
Debra G (Comment #1)
Chey (Comment #42)
Martha McKenna (Comment #76)
By all reports, Julie Leto was a sweet child once, somewhat shy, preferring to play quietly in her room making up stories. However, being raised with three brothers in a loud, primarily Italian household did have its influences and Julie discovered her inner tough girl. That’s probably why most of her heroines kick serious butt. Writing sassy heroines has worked out, as she’s sold over forty books to four publishers featuring strong, confident women. Julie lives in Florida with her daughter, a spoiled dachshund, a haughty lynx-point Siamese and a wide range of relatives all within driving distance.
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don’t have a pet myself but my daughter’s golden doodle Daisy is funny. They got her as a puppy so I’ve been watching her grow up. First of all she has so much ENERGY!! oh to have that much energy again. Constantly on the move. she’s inquisitive and so friendly with everyone. she’s a hoot at times!!
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My neighbor’s dog is like that! She’s part greyhound, I think, because she literally FLIES when she runs. You can barely see her feet touch the ground! Sweet, too!
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No pets here, but I swear my dad’s dog would watch tv and really pay attention. I was home of a visit one weekend and had brought one of the Pirates movies to watch on dvd. I put my feet up on the coffee table and she lifted her head off the sofa, looked at my feet and then me and then the tv screen. I totally knew she was telling me she couldn’t see Johnny Depp and to put my feet down. lol She passed away 2 years ago and I still miss her like crazy.
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So sorry for the loss, Liza. Dogs are so special. In fact in my new novella, I’m resurrecting three dogs that were lost by my family…my brother’s dog, Blue, a 10 mo puppy who died unexpectedly on new year’s day, my other brother’s dog, Lieba, who left us about five months ago and my own Buggabear, my lab-chow mix who I think about every day.
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We have 2 cats and 1 dog. We’ve had one cat Storm for 13 years and man is she neurotic. Everyone is amazed that she’s still alive. Then there’s Idryll our 4 yr old part Siamese cat who is the complete opposite of Storm. Idryll’s best friend is our 1 yr old maltese Finn. These two love to play tag and run through our house jumping over anyone and anything. We just have to sit back and watch. They also love to wrestle with each other.
At night however all three of them curl up together on our bed and sleep together.
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we had a cat that ‘nursed’ our dog. I realize that’s not a neurotic thing, but it was rather strange.
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We have one crazy dog. Her name is Tinkerbell and she’s an American Eskimo Spitz. Pretty much she’s about 20 pounds of fur and attitude. She is the smartest dog we have ever had, but at the same time she is so ditzy sometimes. She barks at the wind and has social issues. But she can make me laugh till my side hurts and she has the cutest smile. She’s also my ever present tail. She goes everywhere with me and freaks out when she can’t find me, lol!
Have a wonderful day!
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Isis, 13, is one of our two Wire-haired Dachshund’s. We call here the Ellen DeGeneres of the dog world. She is a comedian and performer whenever she gets a chance. Very good at sitting up on her butt and begging.She seems to be the spokesdog for the other 3 (2 dachshunds and a Lab mix). The cats just drive me nuts, although TK our 5lb, now 3 yr old rescue did the crab jump thismorning when Charlie (the lab) came in from the back yard. She was hiding behind the sofa and jumped straight up and sideways with her back arched for some reason. It’s not like me standing at the door letting in a 75 lb dog was stealthy either. Charlie just walked on by her but I swear I could hear his eyes roll.
Dogs have expressions because they have eyebrows according to The Spawn. (and if she has to move back home, we will end up adding two more cats to the 3 we already have. This isn’t going to be pretty)
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I have a new baby kitten. She is about 3 months old. She is crazy. She will jump up the side of the couch and then jump on the floor. My daughter and I crack up, but my husband and son don’t really care. I think that it is funny to just us and no one else. She will also wake me up in the middle of the night and want to play. She will lick my face and my ears. When I come home from working my second shift job she is all over me. If I go to the bathroom and don’t let her come in, she will sit outside the door and meow and cry till I let her in. She is definately my cat.
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So cute! My nephew trained his kitten to sit on his shoulder like a parrot. Now she’s a HUGE cat and it’s a good thing he’s a big guy. But when we were cat sitting, it wasn’t so fun. It was like having a living, breathing fur stole. With claws!
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Our cat thinks it’s her job to inspect the bathroom before I go in. She very meticulously checks to make sure there are no spiders or anything else. (When we first moved in, I swore our apartment was built on a spider den there were so many of the leggy creatures!)
Aren’t pets great? The enrich our lives and give us something to focus on besides our worries and business.
Our cat converted my boyfriend, a professed cat hater and dog lover from way back, into a cat lover. He treats our cat like it was his daughter and now, prefers them to dogs. Funny, huh?
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Congratulations to Janelle’s winners. Hope you enjoy whichever book you chose.
Jules, I don’t have a pet, so I can’t share any interesting tidbits about them. The ones I’ve read here are pretty funny though.
I hope you all have a great day!
Peace and love,
Paula R.
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I have 2 black cats that are siblings we rescued from our back yard. How we ended up with 6 kittens in our back yard without having a cat I don’t have a clue. We named them Mork and Mindy. After 4 years Mindy is still very shy and usually stays upstairs mainly in our room. Mork on the other hand is something else entirely. He likes to play in water. We had to put the water bowl in the bath tub because he ends us dumping it out on the floor. Didn’t want accidents! He likes to watch the water run. I got bowls that are guaranteed not to tip for the dog and he will use his paw to fling the water out of the bowl. Now the kitchen floor stays wet. Also, don’t leave drinking glasses out with any liquid in them because those will be dumped too.
His other bad habit is eating plastic. He chews on anything plastic, especially grocery bags. One of these days he is going to be his own down fall.
Then you have poor Aussi (Australian Sheppard and Puggle) that is afraid of Mindy but loves to play with Mork.
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Mork and Mindy sound adorable! My former cat, Miss Kitty, loved running water, too. Her favorite thing was if we’d leave a bathroom faucet on just to dribble. She’d come out with her eyes totally soaked! But she was a Persian who never had any eye issues…I think it’s because she kept them so clean!
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I think my dog and cat work better than blood pressure meds or anti-depressants.
The most regular entertainment comes next to my desk, which faces a long hallway. The cat hides under a chair at the end of the hall, and when the dog (who’s three times larger) walks by, the cat attacks and the dog runs. Sometimes he stands at the end of the hall and barks until I run the cat off. Not that you can run a cat off for long. He’ll just show up to sit on the corner of my desk and sneer down at the dog.
At night they call a truce and pick opposite corners of my bed to sleep. When the alarm goes off, they’re back at it again.
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We have two dogs, a large mixed-breed and a little Yorkie. The Yorkie has discovered a “secret door” into our house and insists on using it. Actually, it’s just the side door to the outside from our laundry room in the garage. Our yard is fenced in, and now every time we let the two dogs out into our back yard through the sliding glass doors on our lanai, the big dog will do his business, then turn around and come back in the way he went out. The Yorkie, however, will do her business and then run around the side of the house and wait patiently to be let back in until someone goes out through the garage and into the laundry room and opens the side door. She will wait there indefinitely, refusing to come back in the “normal” door. We’ve decided she thinks she cleverly discovered a secret passageway.
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At this time I don’t have any pets but have had dogs a good part of my life. Of all the animals probably the most memorable was our dog Millie. She followed my daughter home one day (this was many years ago) at which time I said, “we are not keeping this dog”. Who was I kidding!!
Yes we kept her. She was a joy! We lived out in the country where there were weeds with burrs & other nasty things that stuck in her fur. Every year in late spring we would take her to the groomers for a summer hair cut. They put ribbons on her ears & tail & she pranced when she came home. She knew she was special! The thing that cracked me up was when we were gone wether it was 15 minutes or a week a way she ran figure 8′s outside when we came back. 
It was the funniest thing! When we were gone our UPS man would stop to give her a treat & of course someone was taking care of our pets while we were gone. Millie was a poodle mix & a really cute, well behaved dog. She often curled up in my chair with me. 
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Our dog loves to sleep in the bed, with a pillow and blanket. We often find that she has tucked herself into bed.
When I was little, we had a cat. Like yours he would always get into unexpected places. A favorite place for him was the diaper box in my room when I was a baby. My mom would reach for a diaper and find a cat.
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I’ve had cats all my married life and they never cease to amaze me; they are sneaky, intelligent, funny and so darn hard not to love.
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I do find my pets so funny. I remember one time, the big dog took a swipe at the cat. She picked herself, ran down the hall and across the love seat and landed on the dogs back, claws out. She then sat behind the big couch and washed herself while he tried to get to her.
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I have often wondered if my dogs antics are only funny to me. Today, my friend stopped by for lunch and my dog was doing her weird little space heater dance. It turns out, my friend thought it was funny too!
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We have a rescue cat named Zoe and she is a goof ball. She is busy climbing on the desk trying to help me type at the moment. She loves to open up the plantation shutters and look out the window while she stands on her hind legs. She loves to stalk the birds, she will run from one side of the house to the other chatting the whole time at them. She will stand at the backdoor and meow to be let out back just like a dog. When the land line phone rings she jumps up on the desk and if you tell her to answer it, she will meow at the phone. On chilly mornings, I can find Zoe laying on the heat vents. It is funny to watch the heat blow her long hair around her face, our little “Kitty Diva.” She loves to play in boxes and paper stuffing inside the box is an added bonus. I can find her most nights sound asleep under all of that stuffing. She is a love and I am glad that my daughter was able to resuce her from a horders home.
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Zoe sounds like lots of fun. Glad to know others have been “rescued” from boredom by a cat. We (they) need love too! She sounds like she’s a joy. How funny that she “answers” the phone. I love it!
Our cat doesn’t just sit on the desk, she must “help” you read your book by putting her paws over the page you’re reading, tries to walk on keyboard to help type or close laptop lids to conserve energy. Her favorite perch is the printer or my son’s electronic game systems. (I think she just like them because they’re warm and hum!)
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My cat does hilarious stuff all the time! He likes to attack the bottom of the couch and chase shadows in the bathtub and chase imaginary mice all over the house. I usually laugh so hard watching him that he stops and stares at me like I’ve lost my mind or something is wrong with me.
Gotta love crazy critters!!
Ashley A
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My son and I are cat people. They are so fascinating. Our very ‘health’ cat goes by several names and always keeps us entertained.
She was a rescue cat. She picked us and rescued us from a life of boredom. She’s very picky, owns more “real estate” (in our apartment) than I do, and selective as to who is favored to pet her when.
She’s the queen, princess, huntress, baby cat, baby girl, sister cat, fluffy, miss thang, attitude, missy cat, missy, Sue Sue (said with affection the same way George Baily speaks of his daughter in “It’s a Wonderful Life), and a few others you wouldn’t repeat in church. :)
She’s our huntress. Since she lived on the street at one time, she’s still a bit wild. I swore she broke the patio window the other day she hit it so hard trying to attack a stray cat who dared peer in from her patio. She says really ugly things regularly to the birds as they fly during her “reality TV” viewing out said window. Don’t try to exercise around her either. She will get between you and whatever equipment, mat, floor to prevent it. For some reason she’s terribly offended by it.
And don’t even mention bringing another cat or animal into her turf. Taking her to the vet is traumatic. She hisses, pants and does everything except jump out the window. Has to be in a pet taxi with door open in front seat by vent, with someone talking to her and petting her the entire time… and you’d think you were literally threatening her life the way it terrifies her.
Cats are definitely their own people. Just ask one! Watch their moods and behaviors, listen to the tone of their voice and you figure out real quick what they’re saying and thinking. The ears, eyes and tail are big giveaways. Also, the fur on their back — if it’s up watch out!
Enjoy your “meow” and don’t forget to “obey the cat,” as my son often reminds when she’s being especially demanding.