I've not read anyone's stories for this question because.
I generally leave it late before I reply to any QOTW's and I thought that I'd have a gander at this weeks question today.

I've seen the subject and it's made me cry.

My dog died yesterday and I'm doubly sad. I really miss him, he was, sad though this might sound - a loyal and loving friend. It was the first dog I've ever owned and I've had him for 6 years, he was brilliant. Today, it hurts, really hurts.

Why am I writing this, with a lump in my throat to a load of internet people I don't know? - I've no idea. Sorry if I've missed the point on the question.

I love dogs, and I cry when they go.

I'm male and 34 years old - is this sadness normal or am I going over the top here? I've got to stop, I need to get something to wipe the tears away from my keyboard.
( JeffTheDogFucker Can you dig it?, Mon 11 Jun 2007, 15:46, Reply)

Best Names for Pets
My mate had a cat and a dog.
The were called respectively "Flick" the Cat, and "Kick" the Dog
(bugboybeast, Mon 11 Jun 2007, 15:38, Reply)

Derek Acorah's Spirit Guide Sam
I would suggest that cats know that you don't like them and react accordingly. I am the opposite. I don't dislike dogs, but I am not a fan. When I visit dog-owners' houses, the beasts jump up and slobber all over me and sniff my bollocks, which irritates me. They seem to know this, so they keep jumping up at me and making nuisances of themselves.

Whereas if I go to see someone who's owned by a cat, I usually receive lots of kitty attention of the friendly kind. Sometimes I even get more attention than the cat's ownees!

Some people are cat people, some are dog people. That's the way of the world. Incidentally, there seems to be a disproportionately large number of cat-b3tards compared with dog-b3tards. Must be all the kitteny goodness on b3ta.
( K2k6 has a proper job these days, Mon 11 Jun 2007, 15:19, Reply)

My Mum's school had a pet tarantula
and one half term they put a half dozen locusts (live) in there for it to feed on whilst all the kids and teachers were off.

When they returned they expected a nice full content spider but no, at some point in the week all the locusts had ganged up on the spider and ate him! all that was left was the tarantula's legs......

Next term they got a pet rabbit...
(djgalaxe, Mon 11 Jun 2007, 14:51, Reply)

The bastard
Mrs chilling once had a cat called 'The Bastard', named for it's evil and vindictive nature.


At the time she lived in a shared house, some of her living companions weren't that nice to the cat.


Mike (for that was his name) once kicked the bastard down the stairs, chuckled and went off for his breakfast.

He wasn't chuckling when he put his motorbike helmet on to go out on his days couriering.

The bastard had pissed and crapped in his helmet.


I've never seen a man look greener than him that evening, after he'd worn his cat shit and piss helmet for the day. He had to go and buy a new helmet the next morning.
(chilling, Mon 11 Jun 2007, 14:42, Reply)

Cats
Well all I can say was mine was loyal, didn't mind baths, could do tricks, was as friendly as you like and had a good standard of personal hygiene.

Which is more than I can say about a few people I've dated.
(Bicycle Repairman "you're also a bit of a wanker", Mon 11 Jun 2007, 14:33, Reply)

Cats
Reasons why cats are fucking shite:

1. They are NOT LOYAL. A guy at work paid £200 for this like, rare breed of cat (aren't they all the same, scratchy fucking bastards) and let it out to pee (it was too THICK to learn how to use the cat flap or the litter tray) and it fucked off to a neighbours house. The brand of kitty food must have been far superior, 'cos the little shit never came back! My dog Gypsy once got lost in the countryside of Yorkshire and she still came home the next day - that's loyalty for you!

2. They are THICK. You try and teach your cat to bring your newspaper and it will look at you like you've pissed on it's dinner. You feed them, you love them, you buy them little toys, and how do they repay you?! WORK GODDAMMNIT YOU FELINE SCROUNGER!

3. They are UNHYGENIC. Oh, I've just got in from work. What I would like is my slippers. But no. What do I find? Half a dead mouse and a shit on the rug YOU CAT BASTARD. Can I fill up the tub and give you a bath? Can I balls, you're having a wash by licking your bits. Dirty little bleeder.

4. They are VICIOUS. When I visit my dog-owning mates their pets bound up to me, well excited, wagging their tails and demanding playful attention. When I visit my cat owning mates and merely sit in the vicinity of said cat, I'm covered in bleeding scratches and the remainder of my £40 jumper HOW ARE YOU GOING TO PAY THIS BACK YOU VILE BEAST!?

I don't like cats.
(Northern Lovely, Mon 11 Jun 2007, 14:30, Reply)

Fur and loathing in Liverpool
I’ve been the proud owner of a few pets in my time, some cute and fluffy, some borderline psychotic. There was my tiny cat Sultan and his inexplicable relationship with our enormous Samoyed dog, Emma. They put me in mind of a little flat cap-wearing old northern bloke, smoking woodbines and being terrorised by his enormous, blousy, over made-up wife who he loved to pieces but who drove him insane. When he finally died at the age of 15, she moped for a week and wouldn’t eat. She died two weeks later.

Then there was Giles, a funny looking little rescue kitten with the biggest feet I’ve ever seen on a cat. He came to us with his mum Ellie who had huge, mad yellow eyes and who had been so badly treated in her last house that she hid on top of the kitchen cupboard for the first week and would only come out for food when she thought we weren’t there. Eventually she learned to trust us and would sleep next to me with her paws clasping my hand as she dozed off. Giles too was particularly tactile and would sit on your knee, staring at you, then put his great fat foot smack on your nose until you fussed him. As soon as you stopped, the paw would come back up again and he’d apply a bit more pressure. They were both run over last year, Ellie first, Giles a week later.

But no one comes close to the sheer lunacy of my Burmese cat, Millie. We got her from a rescue centre; the family who’d owned her had moved to Dubai and couldn’t take her. Personally, I think they moved to get away from her. They told me she was about 9. I took her to the vet where I was reliably informed she was at least 13. And she only had 3 teeth, which meant she didn’t so much eat as inhale her food, or, for preference, inhale it, throw it up, then eat it again, much softer and easier to digest that way. She had a thyroid problem which made her a bit scatty and hyperactive, but also caused her awful bladder problems. In order to keep the vet’s bill down I used to check the pH of her urine myself to see if her medication was still working. Greater love hath no woman for her cat than she holds a piece of litmus paper under her while she pisses.

She talked, too, in that weird way Burmese and Siamese cats do. If you said “Hello” to her, she’d respond with a nasal “Hiiiiiyaaaaa”, rather like Janet Street Porter on helium. And she chattered constantly, following you round the house, cataloguing (ha!) her grievances from the day. We used to put her in the washing basket and carry her into the garden while we hung the washing out; she’d sit there contented, talking away to herself.

One of the funniest things I’ve ever seen is the day I had to give her valium, in order to sedate her before a train journey. The vet gave me four tablets with the instruction to give her two before the journey (the other two were for me if I couldn’t cope with her chattering). I managed to shove the tablets down her throat; she skulked off to the kitchen in a strop, only to re-emerge an hour later absolutely off all six of her teats. She fell over and I swear she was laughing. She lay on the floor, waving her paws around, totally unable to fathom how many legs she had or how they worked. She spent the whole journey burbling quietly to herself and occasionally waving a paw at whatever cat-like hallucinations she was having.

She died of old age, fat, happy and soaked in her own piss, which is exactly how I want to go when my time comes...
(Rakky (forgot her password) The muffin maverick, Mon 11 Jun 2007, 14:05, Reply)

When I was very young
probably about 3 or 4, I won a goldfish at the fair, as one did.

My mum got a proper tank for it, and Fred, as he was called, lived in it for some time. Actually he survived 6 years. But he had several hairy moments. Occasionally he would lie at the top of the tank on his side (never a good thing for a fish!) whereupon my parents would add some "Perk-Up" crystals to the tank, and next morning he'd be right as rain.

Except that one night my dad came in late and found Fred in a bad way. There was no Perk-Up lying around, so he chucked in a nip of whisky instead!

Fred seemed to react well to this and next day was fine again. I didn't find out about this until years later, which made me wonder:

WTF is in Perk-Up? Is it still on sale, and is there a human version? (Presumably Red Bull and Viagra would have a similar effect) And was it just luck that whisky did the trick too? I'd have thought alcohol would have poisoned a fish. Everything else seems to.
( K2k6 has a proper job these days, Mon 11 Jun 2007, 14:04, Reply)

I hate cats.
I never used to hate the sly, conniving, filthy little shits but my mind was changed forever since owning one.
This moggy was spawned from the loins of satan himself. It was a gorgeous little sqeaky fluffy thing when we brought it home. Unbelievably cute when we tucked it into it's little basket thing in our bedroom and woke to find it nestled between the pillows on our bed in the morning. Then things changed....

I'd conducted much research on how the little darling should be house trained, all to no avail. Every conceivable method was attempted only to fail miserably in a stinking dollop and wet patch on the carpet. It had litter trays galore, as the last resort, I put a tray of kitty litter in every corner it used as a toilet, only to find that it would squat right beside it.

Then things turned violent. It stopped purring one day and commences the season of growling. I even took the little tw@ to the vet at great expense, to find out that there was nothing medically wrong - it was just a tw@. It would scratch, bite, claw it's way up my back if I had the audacity to crouch down before it....

I then did something shameful. I'd been renovating our new house over a few months, and it became habitable. Satan's feline chum was let out one night and didn't return for 4 days (Stinking). The next time it went out it didn't come back the next day... so I moved house. never seen the evil little shit since.

HOORAY!

My other story is concerning another kitty with a death-wish. Mrs Greencloud worked shifts, and my benevolent self would pick her up from late shifts, leaving home at 10pm. One night I left in a hurry - it was 22:10. I felt a little bump, but thought it was a stone behind a wheel or something. Half an hour later, I return with Mrs Greencloud to find a rather large, rather fluffy, and rather dead black cat lying where my car had been parked earlier.

Not particularly funny - you're thinking. Read on...

With a lack of disposal methods at hand, and not wanting to leave the carcass to be savaged by foxes for the owner to find spread across the street in the morning, I promptly picked it up by the tail and dropped it into a nearby wheelie-bin. Cue Mrs greencloud thinking that i would be arrested / lose my driving licence / be sued by the RSPCA / receive hate-mail from the neighbours etc. I had to patiently explain (repeatedly) that i wouldn't be facing prison or even prosecution for knocking down a cat.

I've now had a cute little dwarf black bunny for almost 8 years. She'll savage anybody else who goes near her, but loves me to bits!
(Greencloud Wanted to go fishing on, Mon 11 Jun 2007, 13:48, Reply)

Cats..
My old cat, Patches, died years ago..

Way to start a story, eh?

Actually, she was a funny cat. Massively clumsy (which cats normally aren't). She used to love walking along the Windowsill on my mum's bedroom, only to get to the end and fall off. We'd be sitting in the living room (below) and hear a sort of meeow and see a dark brown blur go by.

Also, she used to like to sleep in odd places. Normally, the top of our boiler (nice and warm). However, one day, we couldn't find her, so we walked around the house calling her. Eventually, we heard a quiet and rather pathetic sounding meeow coming from the kitchen. So, I went in there, called her again. Heard another meeow, coming from the Cutlery drawer. Someone had left it open, she'd gone to sleep in the back, and someone else had closed it.

Our current cat has his moments as well. Before I carry on, I should explain that he appears to consider his own tail to be another animal. He has a tendancy to wander around not really caring where his tail goes. This means he frequently knocks stuff off tables, but it also means that if he's on the kitchen worktop, he's been known to stick it near the cooker. On one occasion, it caught fire. He was OK, just a little pissed off at having water thrown at him.
(Ok, I'll get me coat, Mon 11 Jun 2007, 13:42, Reply)

I used to have two goldfish
with bubbly heads. Some kind of crazy japanese mutant fish.

I was syphoning out their tank one day and one of them swam under the piping when I wasn't looking. He became attached. I was trying to shake him off and lifted the hose upright. When he finally escaped I noticed I'd pulled the top of one of his bubbles off :(

He died a few days later. I've never really forgiven myself.

But the overall feling of sheer panic was, looking back, quite amusing.
( SugarSpunSister Yeah, whatever, Mon 11 Jun 2007, 13:28, Reply)

Suicidal Kitten
We got our first cat as children - it came from a neighbour who had a small zoo in their back garden (they used to keep sheep there - in the middle of an East London council estate).

Anyhew - 'biscuit' arrived and would delight us with all the cute kitten-y antics. My little brother (who was a toddler at the time) would be wandering around the room, only for this black and white blur to run full pelt at his back and launch itself, 4 paws outstretched and land on his nappy, claws embedded. He would be quite happy to then toddle around with a cat attached to his arse!

However, one day the cat went missing - we had just started the search when our neighbours from downstairs knocked on the door (we lived in a second storey maisonette) with a black and white bundle covered in blood. Aparently Biscuit had seen an open window climbed out onto the window sill and launched herself into the air, only to fall three floors onto concrete below. Normally a fall isn't a problem for cats, as they naturally rotate themselves in mid-air to ensure they land on all fours - only this time, due to the distance - she made a perfect 5-point landing, with her chin hitting the floor too.

Stupid moggy did the same thing a week later! 15 years later she's still going strong though!
( HSDriver was probably still at work on, Mon 11 Jun 2007, 13:26, Reply)

There I was sitting watching TV at about 1am on Saturday morning,
and the cat came in through the catflap and presented me with a vole. A not yet dead vole. The cat was justly proud of himself, and tortured it for a bit, biting off a bit of back leg, chewing its head, and generally giving it a pretty painful sending off from this world. As he was leaving vole blood all over the floor, I eventually picked it up by the tail and chucked it out into the garden, where the cat continued to torture the poor little fucker, til it was no longer moving. Then a fox came and took interest, so the cat, big fierce hunter that he is, decided discretion was the better part of valour, and retreated into the house, leaving the fox with a nice wee snack of Campagnol dans un jus de son Propre Sang…
( pxyzyzygy, Mon 11 Jun 2007, 13:26, Reply)

My Mum
She told me about a year ago when she was working for Eastleigh Council (did you know there are more than 7,000 people living on benefit there? mind it is a shithole.) I digress, anyway this work colleague of hers told her that their cat sits at the table with the family and eats all the same food as the people do. Apparently they've trained it to sit up and wear a napkin or some bloody thing around its neck, the thing has table manners and all.

Isn't that taking things little bit too far ??
( Tiggy the diver, Mon 11 Jun 2007, 13:15, Reply)

He's only trying to be friendly.
Cantsleep's entry just reminded me of my sister's dog, George. George is a staffordshire bull terrier, and when he was a cute little rubbery-faced puppy, he used to sit on people's heads.

The problem is, that he is now a boisterous bundle of energy and solid muscle that still thinks he can sit on people's heads.

I discovered this last time I visited, and he tried it on me. He got as far as my shoulder, with two paws on the top of my head, trying to clamber up.

It was then I felt something alien enter my ear. Guess what it was, readers?

I was about to turn and yell "George! Down!" when I realised that if I turned my head, my mouth would be in the current position of my ear, and it would not be wise to open it.
So I started trying to beat him off.

Er. You know what I mean.

It was then my sister uttered the classic line "He's only trying to be friendly!"

Length? Well, I didn't have to buy cotton buds for some time.
( Stevedix http://www.stevedix.de/blog, Mon 11 Jun 2007, 13:04, Reply)

Things my dog has done...
We have a 10 month old Cocker Spaniel called max. He is incredibly sweet of nature, but has some serious wiring issues in the brain department..

OK, so here goes:

1) He got his nuts chopped off in order to stop him shagging everything in sight. I dropped him off at the vet, and Mrs Cantsleep picked him up the next day, looking very sorry for himself. First thing he does when I come home from work? Jump up and bite me in the crutch. Never done before, or since.

2)He has an OCD complaint when it comes to telephones.. Whenever a mobile phone rings (no matter what the ringtone) he goes mental and tries to dig his way through the hall carpet, to the place that all phones live, under the floor.This applies to the landline, as well as anything else that goes beep, like the oven timer. They all live under there.

3)He is a cleptomaniac. Shoes, telephones, remote controls (his fave)... all will be stealthily stolen and removed to the garden. If he wants to play, he will repeatedly return to where you are, and let you know he has said item getting wet in his mouth. Then he does a runner. If youre unlucky, he will just fuck off and bury it. I have retreived phones on several ocassions by calling them and walking round the garden until I can hear them ringing under the ground. This has the potential to get expensive.

4) His passion to destroy all ringing things extends to chewing through all the cables for the telpephones throughout the house. But *only* the telephone cable. How the hell he manages to distinguish it amongst the rats nest of cables under the desk and behind the TV is anyones guess, but he does. Its not even coinicdence. Hes done this 6 times now.

5) He sits on your head a lot. This was cute when he was a little puppy. He now weighs about 15 Kilos, and now it just makes it difficult to breathe.

6) He thinks he is a cat of an evening. He will grab his latest fluffy toy, the lie on his back with said toy between his front paws, and make like a kitten with a ball of string.

7) he has frog legs. He regularly lays with both rear legs spread completely flat on the floor, and looks like a squashed frog.

But I love him dearly...and so do the mobile phone campany, as I keep having to buy new handsets.

As for length, its passed a couple of minutes when you should be working, so be grateful.
(CantSleepClownsWillGetMe Likes: Turtles, Mon 11 Jun 2007, 12:52, Reply)

Super DOGS
I lived in the Central American region for a while and had two terrier-"ish" guard dogs . Most people kept their dogs outside as the weather was so pleasant, however, I would let the dogs in the house if there was ever a storm predicted. So one evening I take the dogs in the house and bed them down in the kitchen before I go to sleep myself.
Somehow, and I am not entirely sure how, they managed to reach a 2.5 ltr bottle of cooking oil, drag it to the floor, puncture it, drink most of it, then vomit it back up, before finally rolling themselves in it. Both dogs then sneak into my bedroom and jump onto my bed and cuddle up to me. I came to as the pungent rancid smell of two vomit covered dogs reaches my nostrils. Needless to say both dogs slept outside regardless of the weather from that night on.
(bugboybeast, Mon 11 Jun 2007, 12:29, Reply)

Smelly Cat QVC bargain
Several years back, me and my missus were living in a little maisonette in the outer reaches of East London. We had a cabal of cats, which naturally increases the chances of you losing one of them to death or something more serious than that.

So it came to pass that one morning I went to drive to work in Cambridge and found one dead black pussy of ours, Maya, in the road outside our place. To be honest, I lost it and went back into the flat in a torrent of tears and it was left to my other half to sort it out.

But as we had only a concreted back yard, she charged me to take the cat to her mother's in rural Cambridgeshire to bury. So, I shoved the box with the dead moggy in the back of my car and drove north.

With her mum at work, I decided to leave the cat (still in its brown box) in her outhouse, in order to return after work to bury it in the garden.

When I arrived that evening and rang the bell, my gf's mum answered the door and launched a verbal assault at me.

GF's mum was a QVC obsessive and had received a note through the door which she got when she arrived home saying there was a delivery of homemade stained glass kits or whatever was her current obsession. You can guess where the QVC delivery chap had left them.

So it was that amid all the home improvement paraphernalia, this lady opened up one box to find a rather flattened, goggle-eyed and stinking pussy cat staring up at her.

The young lady and I are no longer together.
(Cough Chutney, Mon 11 Jun 2007, 12:25, Reply)

Thief of quality
I was round a mate's a month or two ago (well before barbecue season) when one of her cats appeared with a large uncooked sirloin steak in its mouth.

It looked like aged beef too, none of your cheap-ass orange supermarket own brand shite. Some poor bugger must have had their dinner swiped from inside their own house via their catflap. Class.
( Monty Boyce, My cheese game is strong, Mon 11 Jun 2007, 11:32, Reply)

Rabbit sabotage
Rabbits. I know they're cute looking in a dopey, fluffy tailed and twitchy nose sort of a way but they're evil little fuckers. All of them.

Ex Mrs PJM kept a Netherland Dwarf rabbit called Clover in the house, which at nine years old was six years older than his life expectancy. He was a grumpy bastard, the only thing he actually liked were cats, which he'd follow round the house (Yep, he liked Leonard and Leonard was fond of him). The little bastard would try and take your hand off if you went near his food for whatever reason and would kick his soiled bedding at you when he wanted his hutch cleaning. Nice.

Ex-Mrs PJM then bought two more bunnies when Clover finally popped his clogs, which wasted no time at all in ruining my new spare room carpet and chewing through cables. Thanks to ex-Mrs PJM not spotting the bunny-tackle on one of them ("I'm sure I bought two girls, honest!") we caught them mid-bonk and decided that neutering was the answer, however for some unfathomable and totally irrational reason my crazed ex decided that BOTH bunnies should be neutered. £275 later, job done. Personally, I'd have their necks wrung but that wasn't an option at the time.

I've saved the best bunny story until last. I had been seeing a young lady for a while and was invited back to her place for coffee. On the way I was warned that she was rabbit-sitting a friends bunny which had been fully housetrained and was very friendly. I was duly introduced to the little Wabbit who seemed to enjoy being fussed and petted. He lept up onto my lap a couple of times and started nuzzling me to make a fuss of him and I began to feel years of bunny prejudice falling away as my heart began to melt for the furry little guy. He really could be a cute and friendly bunny after all....

However, I had other matters to attend to.

I moved a little closer to the lady on the sofa, gently put my hand round the back of her head and pulled her towards me for a kiss. I could feel her pulse racing and her warm breath on my cheek...

What the fuck?

Were it not for the intervention of a "cute" bunny this would be a Frankspencer story up there with the best of them. The vicious little bastard had an ulterior motive for leaping into my lap. My hand brushed my thigh and discovered that I had in fact been nothing more than a bunny toilet given the amount of rabbit crap on me. Worse still was the wet patch on the sofa cushion where he'd been peeing right next to me.

So that's it. My bunny experience has consisted of having shitty bedding hurled at me, being scratched, having my wallet savaged and worst of all put right off my stroke by a conniving floppy eared and fluffy tailed overgrown rat.
(Bicycle Repairman "you're also a bit of a wanker", Mon 11 Jun 2007, 10:48, Reply)

Godard
After I moved out of my parents' home, their dog Mickey missed me badly. He's a small lapdog of the breed bichon frise, as described several pages ago. Whenever they went on vacation, it would be my job to look after him, and we had some fun adventures.

1) This one must have looked strange from his perspective. I brought him over to my apartment where my friend Jenn was hanging out. The three of us went on a walk together, during which I ran into my girlfriend. I started walking arm-in-arm with her, and Jenn felt awkward and left. We took Mickey home. Keep in mind he had never met her before so to his perspective I went on a walk with my bitch, found a new one I liked better and brought her home. Anyway, once at my apartment she and I got under a blanket and started messing around. Mickey gave us a bit of privacy, but I could see him go into the next room and jump up on the bed where he could get a better look. And then after this encounter, he started walking a little closer to me and looking up at me with such a worshipful look. He really thought I was awesome for pulling that off.

2) I brought him by the video store where my friend worked. I was kind of embarrassed of the name Mickey so we decided to rename him. Looking at a poster on the wall, I decided he would be Godard after the French director. Over the next few days Godard became withdrawn and uninterested in doing stuff with me. One day I was at the dinner table eating and he was in the other room moping rather than begging for scraps. I called out to him "Godard!" but he wouldn't move. Finally I said "Mickey" and he ran over with the most heartbreaking look on his face.
(racetraitor has an alibi for, Mon 11 Jun 2007, 10:46, Reply)

The Duck
Many of you will know that when travelling through the market places of , um, most countries other than Britain, they are a veritable things-that-make-you-go-ahhh fest of ducklings, chicks, ickle bunny rabbits and other assorted baby animals meant to be taken home, fattened up and eaten at a later date. This distresses many of us Brits, and so it was that a group of boys who were also studying abroad came to 'rescue' a duckling from its culinary fate. Of course, 'rescue' is a rather loaded term. Rather they bought it from the market and then realised that they had a duckling to look after. How do you look after a duckling in a dorm room? They kept it for about a week - one guy gave it to another guy who in turn passed it on, and then one guy had the bright idea of giving the duck to his girlfriend...

So the duck arrived at my institution. This was a Thursday night. Did I mention that nearly every week on Friday we'd get kicked out for the weekend so that we could spend the sabbath with local families? Ah. What is Deb who now owns the duck going to do with it?

She phones me:

Deb: Hey Hampster!
Me: Hey Deb...what's up?
Deb: Um, is your boyfriend staying in his place this weekend?
Me: Hold on, I'll just check

*rings boyfriend*

Me: Hey Ben! How're you?
Ben: I'm great, how're you?
Me: Fine, fine...look, um, how would you like to babysit a duck over the weekend?
Ben: A duck...wait, I'm just in the library, *to the others* Hey guys! Straw Poll, who thinks I should take a duck from my girlfriend for the weekend? One...Two...*mumbles* Ok, sure!
Me: Ok, we'll meet you in the main square with the duck and its food and stuff.
Ben: You really do have a duck, don't you...

*ten minutes later*

"I can't believe I'm giving you a duck!"
"I can't believe I said yes! Ooh, it's so cute..." *wanders off happily*

That weekend, He had to barricade the duck in with his matress, then barricade out guys who wanted to come in to kill and eat it. Then the authorities found out about it and charged him rent for the duck. Plus he was infamous for the duck incident forever after.
( Hampster Squared has stuff at www.tilla.co.uk, Mon 11 Jun 2007, 10:21, Reply)

Mah fuzzy hairballs...
I've had a few cats while I've been alive. 4 in total: 2 chillin' in cat heaven, 2 living and being adorable as we write / speak / whatever.

Tiger (??? - ca.1992): Lilac-point Siamese cat. He was a beautiful furball - unfortunately, he died when I was about 3 years old from jaw cancer. The kicker is, not long before, my parents had to get him a new leg due to him being a furry idiot. I've got a picture of him somewhere, and I vaguely remember patting him when I was little.

Tabby (??? - ca.2002): He was a tabby (hence his name). He was also very shy, due to him being a wild cat that my mum rescued - and that meant that only Mum was able to pat him. He died some time ago from a kidney disease (which meant he was crapping all over the house - charming!).

Roo (??? - present): He's an Abyssinian - Ocicat cross, and he's mostly AWOL, due to the other cat in the household. He's a lovely boy, when he's not outside, and enjoys being flea-combed.

Sylvie (Nov 1998 - present): My favourite wee furball. Her mum was a Siamese purebred, and her dad was a tabby tomcat - this is because mum came on heat, got shut inside, broke the cat door, cue cat sex. She's usually around the house most of the time, but occasionally brings in rodents, birds and skinks (lizards). Sylvie also bullies Roo something awful, which started from approximately the minute she set paw inside the house. She is also ickle and fuzzy and I wuv her so much!

Apologies for length. I love/d my fluffy ickle wee furballs.
(GLC, Mon 11 Jun 2007, 9:35, Reply)

Caesar
Caesar was one of three cats we once had. They were rescued kittens from feral parents & as such they weren't your pedigree stock.
Julie had weight gain early followed by weight loss in her later years (it was a proper medical reason too; not greedy-cat-itis)
Her sister Cleo had a propensity for climbing up the roof ladder & walking on the fibreglass loft insulation (her pink paw pads & nose would glow for ages after)
And then there was Caesar.....

who was diagnosed with epilepsy. On tablets to control his fits it never held him back. He would love to climb & be fussed. He'd climb the curtain on the back door from floor to curtain rail then hang back to be caught. He'd climb legs then jumpers in order to sit on your shoulders as you stood in the kitchen doing stuff. He'd launch himself in a one-way jump from the side to me Mum many a time. Once he tried that with me but I caught him mid-air much to both our surprise!
They all passed on years ago now & are always missed.
(chris337, Mon 11 Jun 2007, 9:03, Reply)

Witches; obvious.
Cats are like women- capricious, underhanded and only loyal to themselves. Dogs are like men- loyal, protective and sometimes a little bit simple.
We had a cat and dogs, as a kid, and the cat got run over. I didn't care.
The dogs however I loved to bits, they were loyal, protective and good guard dogs. The scond one we got was a mongrel- a mish mash of dalmation/pointer/labrador etc. Coming down off Snowdon one time he was a fair bit behind so I called him to catch up. He started to run down and picked up pace. Like a looney tune his pace, on such an incline, started to become faster than his legs could move. There was an hilarious dawning of realisation on his face and he tried to dig in his front paws but to no avail. His hind legs overtook his front and he did a forward roll- enough to slow him down and get back under control. He looked both sheepish and deliriously happy.

Ah, happy memories bless him.
(Dellamorte Dellamore Fuck it all, fuck it up, fuck it., Mon 11 Jun 2007, 8:54, Reply)

Guard cats
One Christmas, my mother put the turkey neck out in the back yard for the cat. The cat loved it, gnawed on it, and dragged it to its corner of the yard before falling asleep under a bush.

A seagull took this chance to swoop in to steal the turky neck. Buddy was possessive of it though. He rushed out, puffed up, and attacked a seagull twice his size. As soon as it flew away, he got a look like he was scared shitless, started shaking, and wandered back under his bush.

He apparently didn't even realize what he was doing until AFTER he jumped the massive bird.

Another cat more recently, Pissarro, would sit by the door watching our front yard. Since we lived on Kauai, there were wild chickens that had been spread across the island after the hurricane. A group of them would come wandering into our yard, and *BAM* Pissarro shot out the door and down the path after them.

Kept them out of the garden.

Occasionally when there were no chickens, he would randomly bolt out the door and halfway up the telephone pole in our yard. Or just attack my legs then run off.

He also liked stalking me when I was doing yard work. When I least expected it he'd fly out of the air, claws out, land on my back and administer the death bite. Still have the scars. Cheeky bastard.
(Exempt OH WOW, VICODIN, Mon 11 Jun 2007, 4:39, Reply)