Not pets really, livestock.
My mate Geoff had a herd of Friesian dairy cattle and I used to help him weekends. A cold February Sunday and a heifer decides it's her time to calf but she can't get it out. Ropes on legs and much tugging and eventually a sad floppy form spills out onto the meadow. By this time farmer and I are lying on the icy grass breathing smoke signals. Geoff instinctively unblocked the calf's nasal passage and we put this one down to the absence of a god. About a minute later we stood up and prepared to dispose of the corpse and by now you've all guessed the ending. The calf kicked into life and we carried him to a relatively warm barn. An hour later I had him bottle trained ( his mum was too exhausted). Outcome:- well male calves of dairy breeds, have a guess.
( edjogs Collared doves are shit., Wed 6 Feb 2013, 22:18, 3 replies)

In which grandmasterfluffles gets busted by her cat
I used to own an awesome cat. Mimi was a tiny little overexcited fluffball who actually used to come when she was called, and would always be incredibly pleased to see me when I got home. To be fair, she was always incredibly pleased to see anyone, being as she had an inexhaustible desire for attention. She also had a voracious appetite, once polishing off an entire cheesecake when my back was turned, and generally having an amazing talent for stealing food off people's plates when they weren't looking. In short, she was the world's greatest cat, even if she wasn't too bright.

At the same time, I had a boyfriend. A boyfriend of whom my flatmate disapproved (he was right - boyfriend turned out to be a total tosspot, but I digress). It was early days in the relationship, and because my flatmate was an annoying overprotective nosy sod, I told him that the boyfriend and I were Just Friends.

Flatmate and I went out to the supermarket one day, returning a short while later. For once, Mimi wasn't running around, chasing her tail, meowing hysterically and jumping on us as if we'd been gone for days. She was simply sitting in the middle of the living room staring at us, tail swishing from side to side, next to a used condom that she'd dragged out of my bedroom bin.

BUSTED
(grandmasterfluffles Come to my Armageddon party on, Wed 6 Feb 2013, 22:05, 5 replies)

Thumper
I've had the usual gamut of pets since I was little. This rambling post is about a black & white rabbit named Thumper (after the character in Bambi - I'm still mad of Disney films now, we'll into my 30s).

I'm told (for I was only very young at the time) that he was mad on hopping. He was playing in his run and hopped a little too high & injured his back on the top of the run. This has led to one of my earliest memories: feeding Thumper by bottle whilst knelt down by the kitchen sink. They say that your sense of smell can trigger floods of memories - there was a particular smell from this moment in my childhood (no, it wasn't stale rabbit piss, you sickos) and some years ago, I was bimbling around my local Debenhams, having all manner of perfumes wafted at me by orange ladies. As you do.

All of a sudden I was knocked sideways by a scent which had (and still has) a wholly inexplicable effect on me. The perfume does not smell like that sunny day in our kitchen bottle-feeding my poorly pet rabbit, but it sent my brain on a merry dash back through the years landing me smack-bang right in my formative years. I can only apologise if this makes little to no sense to you, dear reader. This is hard to describe, and whenever I've tried telling people about it, the poor unfortunate listener quite often fixes me with a glare which informs me I'm about to be told to shut up or marked out as a bit of a 'case'.

However, the perfume in question is now my preferred pong of choice (a curse in some ways - if you want to smell it yourself, hie thee to your local Christian Dior counter and wrap thine nostrils about a snifter of Hypnotic Poison - the last bottle I purchased set me back a mere £50. Don't the Paris fashion houses know there's a recession on?!) and each time I catch a whiff of it, physically makes me weak at the knees and my eyes go all a bit rolling back in my head. Someone call a priest.
(Sahara Desert http://www.twitter.com/thesaharadesert for swears, Wed 6 Feb 2013, 19:44, 1 reply)

Feed the birds not the cat
If you had a (well fed) cat and you also put some bread out in the garden for the birdies, would you expect said cat to:

a) lurk in hedge, wait for the birdies to fly down for the bread and then *pounce* birdies for tea?
OR
b) eat the bread, vomit on the hall carpet and then lie under the bed looking bilious and bewildered?

*sigh* I think I have a beta cat.

First post, long time lurker, please be kind and feed the birdies.
( Curtainsnotclutches, Wed 6 Feb 2013, 19:06, 6 replies)

Sooooo my dog Jack caught a huge squirrel this morning( Dec 15th actually...I posted this on facebook) ....but he would NOT leave it alone and carry on our walk, so I picked it up and put it in my big inside pocket until I could find somewhere to dispose of it ...or give it a fitting funeral at home. We carried on walking and he forgot about it, then we met a friend and her dog and stopped for a chat...then the squirrel woke up.......I felt a godawful squirming inside my jacket and but before I could get my jacket zip down more than 3 inches it burst from my jacket and dropped to the ground.
The spaniel wrenched the lead from his owners hand, almost garotted her daughter, she started screaming, the spaniel and jack chased the squirrel to the trees, the spaniels lead got caught on undergrowth, then jack tripped over it, they had a disagreement, the squirrel ran up the tree, jack saw it and stood, barking at it 20 ft up in the tree,it panicked, made a leap for the adjacent tree, missed its footing and landed at the feet of the screaming child, at which point jack decided now was a good time to catch it and murder it, so the child is now traumatised from witnessing squirrelcide and jack still wouldn't leave it so I had to put it in my jacket pocket.......
(Jessypuss Fiddling with stuff since 1957, Wed 6 Feb 2013, 18:55, 8 replies)

The first time I ever held a snake
It did a poo on my hand (no this isn't a euphemism).
(TheManWithThePlan cussed your mum on, Wed 6 Feb 2013, 18:45, 2 replies)

My family used to have a black labrador
She was wonderfully sweet, but superbly dim. Was once frightened by her own bark in an echoing room.

However, the story that springs to mind was the time that she escaped out the front door on a dark night. We didn't notice for about 5 minutes, until we realised that she was nowhere in the house.

Quickly, a few of us ran out in different directions, trying to see where she could have gone. As we headed off along the main road, I shouted back to my friend Alex to grab a torch and head down our actual road, as it became near pitch black after a couple of hundred metres. As he couldn't find one, he grabbed his phone, and using his pathetic phone light, tried to search beyond the end of the street lights.

At this point, we'd noticed her missing about 20 minutes beforehand, and I was starting to get desperate. We hear a shout coming from Alex down the road, as he's sprinting up, running from something. Turns out he'd made it enough of a distance into the dark that he could barely see around him, and after a minute there, something had brushed against his leg. He looked down, but whatever it was had gone. At this point, he claims he felt heavy breathing, something on his shoulder, then a shout.

At this, he ran. Sprinted all the way back to mine. We see him coming up, sweat streaming from the effort of the run. As he tries to explain this, I absolutely crack up, knowing what had happened.

Turns out black labs aren't easy to see in near pitch black, especially when her new favourite game was jumping up towards peoples backs. It didn't help that when this game doesn't have the desired effect, she'd bark. My friend had near shat himself at one of the softest, friendliest dogs you'd ever meet, the fucking poof.

She died in 2009, and I still miss that dog, she was ace.
( Agnostic Antichrist Baltimora, Wed 6 Feb 2013, 16:58, Reply)

Mercer, McLoughlan, Mayhew.
There's some more Pat tories.
( Dr Preference AjcuiVd289, Wed 6 Feb 2013, 16:52, Reply)

I was a bloody student. I was a fucking cunt, I admit - like some bastard cross between Vivian and Rik out of The Young Ones.
But there was a guy in our halls who dressed every day in tweeds, and had a pet piece of carpet which he used to take everywhere with him on a lead.
( Je suis un vagabond is an unfunny, up your own arse middle class knob, Wed 6 Feb 2013, 16:52, 6 replies)

I see that some of the the objectors to the gay marriage bill...
...were objecting because it 'wasn't in the manifesto'.
More petty tories I don't think I've ever seen.
( Amorous Badger NAKED BEA ARTHUR PHOTOS 4U, Wed 6 Feb 2013, 16:32, 2 replies)

Heinz the Bastard
Whilst living in Germany, Missus Hammy decided to adopt Heinz, a ginger tom cat from a couple who were going through a rough patch.
I say a cat, this thing was huge with an attitude as large as he was. On the day we picked him up he took one look at our pooch (a Belgian Shepherd) kicked fuck out of her and preceded to dominate life in our flat.
A few of Heinz's tricks:
Dead birds, mice, small mammals left at the entrance to the flat. All minus heads.
Coming in from an all night jaunt then shitting in the bath tub.
When taking the dog for a walk or walking down town he would follow, blithely crossing busy roads without a care in the world.
Letting small children pet him then after 10 seconds attacking them.
Letting me stroke his belly then after 10 seconds ripping my arms to bits.
Sadly the ginger bastard caught FIV and passed away at a relatively young age of 13. It was such a shame to watch a once arrogant, selfish shithead withdraw into the shell he became.
RIP Heinz, you were a total wanker but we still miss you
(Hammy1801 may have scabies!, Wed 6 Feb 2013, 15:50, 3 replies)

The bar manager's dog found his new, full bag of magic mushrooms ...
Scoffed the lot, and spent the entire day sitting in the corner of the living room, staring at the wall.
( Je suis un vagabond is an unfunny, up your own arse middle class knob, Wed 6 Feb 2013, 11:30, 8 replies)

Yeah, sorry about the smell.
We don't dare use the bathroom anymore
( Tab Hunter Make this useless process end and so, begin again, Wed 6 Feb 2013, 11:28, 9 replies)

I'm too sexy for my cat.

( drimble he'd been white, he'd been black, Wed 6 Feb 2013, 11:24, Reply)

Speaking of dead hedgehogs (thanks, Prof.KM),
our bull terrier once found a decomposing 'hog and proceeded to shove her face into it, resulting in her head becoming covered in fleas (or some other small bug). Dad decided that the best way to remove these would be to wrap his hand in sellotape and pat her on the head; this did indeed remove all of the fleas, but also quite a bit of hair, which never really grew back properly. Add this to the scar on her nose, from when she had attempted to chase a cat whilst still on the lead (cat wasn't stupid and could see she was no threat, thus proceeded to claw her nose open), and she wound up being a very odd looking dog - she was also bandy-legged and short, as a result of her being the runt of the litter.

Come to think of it, she also had a bald belly and one bald leg, where hair had failed to grow back after being shaved before surgery. Probably a good job that she didn't moult much.
( monster munch person, man, woman... camera... TV?, Wed 6 Feb 2013, 11:10, 1 reply)

Mrs Vagabond Snr had a Heinz 57 called Beany.
He was a quiet but confident, friendly thing, but did have a habit of running away, which meant he always had to be on a lead.

One day, she managed to lose him before she took him for a walk. Thinking he must have legged it out the front door during the daily traffic, she had to go on the assumption that he'd be back when either he was ready, or hungry.

The next day, she was seriously worried until, putting the washing away, she opened the airing cupboard, and out ran Beany. Having listened to a house full of people, for nigh on 36 hours, he had not barked, he had not scraped the door, he had not whined ...

Stupid animal.
( Je suis un vagabond is an unfunny, up your own arse middle class knob, Wed 6 Feb 2013, 10:21, Reply)

Late last summer...
I was in the park with my dog, watching him happily running around investigating stuff that only he could smell, thinking how serendipitous it was that he came into my life when he did; Jess got to spend some time with him (and absolutely adored him), then after she died he kept me going on days when I otherwise would have stayed in bed and drunk myself to death.
I was thinking about how amazed I would have been if I'd known what the future held, and how from never having owned a dog before to being left on my own with one could have been such a major trauma, but was fine because I really couldn't have wished for a better dog - he's house trained, doesn't mind being left on his own when I go to work, is always pleased to see me when I get home, and really makes me laugh on almost a daily basis. He's a proper dog, with a real personality, and I love him to bits.

Then he rolled in a dead hedgehog
(Professor Kenny Martin Hmm? What?, Wed 6 Feb 2013, 10:21, 1 reply)

Our cat HATES our dogs
But one day while we were out for an evening of over-priced entertainment they worked together. It was around this time last year, just before Valentines. I had stored a rather large slab of chocolate from one of these posh chocolate shops on top of our wardrobe to present to my betrothed for the afore-mentioned corporate-inspired holiday.

Sometime after we left, the cat swanned in through the cat-flap and was promptly chased up on top of the wardrobe by the dog, knocking said bar of chocolate down as he fled for his very life. The dog, no doubt thought xmas had come early and devoured all but a small piece. Upon our return we found one very square dog and were treated to chocolate smelling vomit for the following 10 hours.

The poor thing has the dog equivalent of IBS, and sometimes he surprises himself at the smells that emanate from his back passage.

Edit: The cat is a tough bastard, he's twatted both dogs on the nose more than once for merely sniffing him. Also, we did contact the vets regarding the dog's chocolate eating addiction, and it turns out dark chocolate is more poisonous.
(vampyre_gem has been dead since, Wed 6 Feb 2013, 9:44, 21 replies)

Just what you need on a walk after Sunday lunch
This weekend, one of my parents' dogs started tucking into a pile of horse shit in the middle of the lane. Absolutely wolfing it down like it was a plate of hot chips.

If that dog ever licks me again, I am going to take out a restraining order.
(rogerzilla, Tue 5 Feb 2013, 20:27, 3 replies)

This just happened...
Dog
+ extendable lead
+ garden with little trees
+ dog exploring trees
+ trying to follow dog so as not to get tangled
+ dog coming to see what you're doing
= CARNAGE

:D
(Professor Kenny Martin Hmm? What?, Tue 5 Feb 2013, 20:11, 5 replies)

Crystal Tips and Alistair
My ex-girlfriend is now the Crazy Cat Lady - in fact, she always has been. When we were together, she lived in a tiny basement flat - along with nine cats and a mahoosive dog. I mean huge, something like a cross between a Great Dane and an Apatosaurus. We'd often wake up by being forced off the double bed because it was entirely covered in Dog, with a side-salad of assorted Cat.

He was hilarious, though - especially when he tried to shag the cats. Being large it would take him a while to shuffle his legs so that his cock was where he thought the cat was, then he'd start to grunt and huff with a glazed expression, gleefully humping empty space - while he was sorting out his giraffe-like legs, the cat had of course simply wandered off.

It was less funny when the gf and I were doing the humping. I'm sure we've all been disconcerted by being watched by a pet while shagging. Now imagine an audience of 10 unblinking pairs of eyes. I kept expecting a round of applause at the end.

Actually I usually think I should get a round of applause, but that's nothing to do with the audience
(moon monkey is busy making memories worth repressing, Tue 5 Feb 2013, 12:03, 14 replies)

Turns out he didn't have any puppies
But at least I got a shag.
( Je suis un vagabond is an unfunny, up your own arse middle class knob, Tue 5 Feb 2013, 9:42, 6 replies)

Underage girls; if Bartleby offers to let you see his pets please RUN AWAY and tell an adult.

( Fucking hell Jeff I am not a robot, Tue 5 Feb 2013, 8:42, 8 replies)

I hope the majority of you don't have kids, given your anecdotally demonstrated inability to properly care for animals.

( BraynDedd Natasha Kaplinsky's labia majora, Mon 4 Feb 2013, 23:21, 61 replies)

Naughty dog! Greedy dog!
Our Springer Spaniel once climbed on the table as mum was calling the family to Sunday lunch and ate a leg of lamb, all the veg and an apple pie. I was out at work but phoned to say when I would be home and was told Spaghetti Bolognese was now on the menu. As I came in the door, Susie the Spaniel was climbing down off the table, with the last strand of pasta disappearing down her gullet. I loved that dog!
(sputnik1, Mon 4 Feb 2013, 22:52, 3 replies)

So, after my mum killed my cat
She finally relented through guilt to let me have a budgie.
My nan always had budgies. The kind that sat on her shoulder tweeting 'who's a pretty boy then', swinging off the bridge of her glasses and turning the cards over for her while playing patience, sat at the dining room table.
I was so excited. I knew I had to get a young male as they are the best talkers.
Charlie finally came into my life and I adored him. I got him all the best food, and an ace big cage and a bath and treats and sat by him talking to him for months.
Eventually it dawned on me that he really didn't want to talk. No fucking way. Stubborn bastard.
What he really wanted to do was take my eyes out when he was let free for a fly around. So much so I had to run out of the room after opening the cage as he would viciously dive bomb me, if he caught me he would peck at my face and grab my hair while squawking blue murder at me.
Only after he would return to his cage could I come back into the room.
Any attempt to change his food, water, stroke him, put in a millet spray would be met with his blue fucking feathered Velociraptor impression as he tried to take apart my hand peck by peck.
I did really try to make friends though, he broke my heart.
Bastard miserable budgie sat hunched on his perch with his cold dead eyes, silently mocking me while making himself laugh in his little budgie mirror.
Birds like that have a usual life span of 5-10 years, unless they are happy and healthy and this fucker was clearly not happy. I figured he would be flying down to bad bird hell after a while.
15 years later.
15 FUCKING YEARS LATER the vet insisted on putting him down.
Only because his claws had become so deformed through bitterness and hatred that he couldn't hold onto his perch anymore, he clung on till the very end just to spite me I am sure of it.
( Herb Alpert's Taxi Driver I have very beautiful lips, Mon 4 Feb 2013, 22:42, 2 replies)

I tell this with a very heavy heart
Last Sunday my African Grey parrot flew off into the Keighley night sky, loved him to bits.
I taught him to say "This is the news" and "fancy lady" and (my favorite) "Peter you've lost the news" so that Sunday morn me and the boyfriend had been searching for him.
I put the feelers out and later on in the day I get a text that he has been spotted on the other side of town on a rough council estate, don't get me wrong I was brought up on a council estate but this one as I found out today had seen better days.
Every other house has a L.C.D screen on the chimney breast (so do I) every third house has a sofa in the front garden, every forth house is boarded up and every fifth has a sign up saying "CCTV in operation private property beware of the dogs"
So there's me and the other half walking/driving shouting "This is the news" and "peter you've lost the news" but just as I shouted "fancy lady" a classy lady was putting her bins out and had heard this and she replied "you what" and I had to explain the whole sorry situation to her and she was OK about it.
But still driving round at slow speed shouting "fancy lady" in a rough area must have looked like we were looking for something else, but it did bring some laughter to a dark day.
So if you find a parrot that sounds like Chris Morris keep him warm and safe.miss you Zeus
( CysticSpazzGland has just puwked on your mum, Mon 4 Feb 2013, 21:13, 9 replies)

My dog
has saved my life on many occasions. I got him from a professor who wasn't able to take him back to his home land because of freight restrictions, and he accompanied me on my travels for many years. We used to get into incredible scrapes, against the most appalling odds, and my dog was always there to help me and take down my enemies.

He left me at one point, to go off with one of my female companions... but I'd managed to copy him and his Mark 2 version was as good if not better!

In the end he had to go, though, again off with another of my female friends, off on a noble crusade to help restore an enslaved race.

I caught up with him many MANY years later during a little scrape at a school, and since then we've kept in touch. I hear he has his own little concern down under now.

Ahhh...

He could be a pedantic cunt at times though and would always trounce me at chess however much I cheated.
(Dr Skagra glorious glargzhem, Mon 4 Feb 2013, 21:01, 7 replies)

Happy Valentine's Day
One year I decided that I would play the thoughtful, romantic spouse and prepare a wonderful Valentine's Day surprise for my beloved. I was on a day off and she was working so the preparations went undetected. I prepared a delicious dinner (grilled steaks with all the trimmings, baked potato, salad etc)hand candles on the table and finished it off with a nice bottle of red wine, flowers and chocolate. Well, her expression on entering the house was priceless. During the meal she said,"This is marvellous - almost too good to be true!" As I was basking in the praise, our dog wandered into the room, gazed soulfully at us then threw up a mass of semi-digested dog food, grass and other substances right next to the table. We sat in stunned silence for a second, then collapsed in laughter. My spouse, God bless her, cleaned up the mess, the dog was banished outside and the rest of the evening was a huge success.
(Smudge the Demon, Mon 4 Feb 2013, 20:39, 6 replies)

I've never fucked a dog.
Woken up next to a few though.
(Vigilante Man weeps because you're stupid., Mon 4 Feb 2013, 19:46, 6 replies)