Me ol' OL' dog Sam
back in the 1980s. We used to live in what is considered a rough aea of Swansea called Blaen-y-Maes. The area has gone even worse nowadays, with the only real decent building being the school (one of the best results school in the county considering the area is a complete shit-pile).

Me parents decided that a guard dog was the order of the day, and thus we had a black labrador cross called Sam. Couldn't have asked for a more loyal dog, me and Sam would walk through the forest opposite our house for miles on end most days; was such a contrast to the shithole of an area which surrounded our house.

Some farmer decided after a while to build an electric fence, to keep some cows from crossing onto the main road. Fair enough I suppose, as it wasn't unknown for an entire herd to be walking past our house mooing like fuck at 6 in the morning. Some local thugs though had decided to lay the electric fence down with bricks, so they could happily continue to dump cars away from the beating road.

Me n dad had decided to go for a walk through the woods, and Sam tagged along. We reach the fence and it's pinned down, much to the delight to Sam, who'd encountered the fence before and was well wary of it. Sam thought this was great, and started walking and skipping over fence, carefully putting his feet inbetween the wires of the fence and wagging his tail fanatically. We both stopped walking and watched him doing this, knowing that Sam's showing off with his new power over the fence.

Got a bit too cocky though and after about the 8th time got the timing wrong; he stood on it, jumped about 6 foot high with all four legs outstretched, yelped and darted back home. Daft sod.

Soz for length, and so's the dog.
( Jeccius Steam Borderlands 2 junkie, Fri 15 Jun 2007, 9:17, Reply)

Fuzz The dog, part 2
The other thing this dog was terrified of was Linolium, or any smooth surfaced floor for that matter. The reason for this was that when he was a pup, he was foolishly chasing the snake killing cat through the kitchen. The cat, being far more agile, lept up onto the counter, the dog, being dumb as a box of rocks put the brakes on and slid straight into the fridge, hitting hard.
Since then he can't walk on it, his legs go rigid and tremble, which of course makes it worse and he tries not to do the splits.
There was one gap in the house near the front door where the carpet ended, before the rug at the door began. It was about six inches of linolium exposed and he couldn't walk over it. Occasionally he would jump over it, but more often he would approach it, look thoughtfully, turn around, lay down and crawl backwards over the six inch patch of floor. Keep in mind he's a big dog and could easly walk over without touching it.
Funny thing is, he always slept on the linolium floor, I suspect because it was cooler, but he had to have one paw on the carpet at all times. If you moved his foot even an inch, he'd be hysterical. He was an idiot, but we loved him.
(The Cosmic Fool Became aware that the bird is indeed the word on, Fri 15 Jun 2007, 9:08, Reply)

Cassie...
Our next door neighbours cat was a darling. To me. And her owners. But no-one or nothing else. Ever.

New neighbours moved opposite, Cassie sat outside the cat flap and each time the noob poked it's head out, Cassie would swipe at him. And the cat over the back of the estate, quite literally shat itself each time it saw her. Now a cat that spontaniously shits itself is quite funny.
(beatpig understands subliminalesbianmessagaying., Fri 15 Jun 2007, 7:57, Reply)

My College Teacher...
We found our college teacher on myspace after the first month or so back in september when we started... we also found pictures of him with this cat (who we later found out isn't is, he potched it from next door with catnip)



The "tom is my god" thing was me... I've never laughed so hard in my life. The man is a legend though, seriously.

True Story.
(billybobbean is still trying to make it QOTW's best of the week, Fri 15 Jun 2007, 6:11, Reply)

'nuff said


The big gray with the green collar is Kramer - 17lbs, 13 years old and grumpy as fuck.
The stripey one, Cornelius, is bengal - he loves his momma nights and mornings, but terrorizes his daddy during the day.
The small gray one is Chloe, she's a princess and is such a man whore. Any guy that comes over, she's on his lap purring and waiting to be petted. She tolerates me because I feed her. Bitch.
( Batshitmentalist is sane for once, Fri 15 Jun 2007, 5:48, Reply)

Mafia Cat
My mum's now-dead cat Sebastian was in the habit of bringing in decapitated squirrel carcasses and depositing them in the middle of the family room for mum.

She'd call me at least once a week in a panic, demanding I drop whatever I was doing and come round to clean up her 'gifts'.

We're guessing he ate the heads; must've had a digestive system of steel, that cat.
(louveciennes , Volvospotter, Fri 15 Jun 2007, 4:47, Reply)

Ratties
When I was 18 or so and living in Auckland me and my Bf had two little females rats we had adopted. They were called fatty and bean, my one was called bean cos she had a little spot on her back, and Fatty, well pretty self explanatory I guess. They used to tear around like they were on fastforward making nests out of shredded paper and fatty would steal bean's food and run off with it and scarf it down like she was starving. We kept them on a table about 4 foot high and with a guard around the edge. It was a real cool set up with heaps of tunnels and cages on top of each other and paper and stuff everywhere. They would sometimes stand on the guard but they knew where the edge was and wouldn't jump off it (it was far away from anything else - we had a huge bedroom).

One night I woke up to feel this small cold thing wriggling up through my jammies I freaked out and screamed really loudly, it felt like the hand of death. but it turned out fatty must have dived off the edge of the table onto the floor (maybe was aiming for the bookshelf) then clawed her way up onto our bed (was also quite high) on the duvet or something and then made her way into my pjs. I nearly squished her, I was half asleep and freaking that this thing was crawling up my leg. She got out of my pants and ran up to the pillow and sniffed my hair.

Had to take them both back to the petshop when we moved overseas though and I cried :(

They were so cute but had dead dead eyes.
(Sammyj, Fri 15 Jun 2007, 4:08, Reply)

My cats
Just for the sake of it, here are my cats.

I don't really have much of a story, just their family tree.

My friend Samia had three cats.
-Two boys named Orange and Butt-Butt, one girl named Rudy. None of them neutered.
-Orange got Rudy pregnant and she gave birth to five kittens.
-Before they popped out, Orange was neutered.
-Butt-Butt was allowed to keep his balls because she thought he was gay. Yes, this will be relevant later.
-The five cats were given away. I wanted one but couldn't have one. One Korean woman took two for her children, who we'd named Knuckles and Punkin.
-After several months, the woman came back to my friend. "These cats aren't disciplined! They keep playing with each other!" She was displeased. So to maximise punishment, she decided to separate them, keeping Punkin and giving Knuckles back to Samia.
-Soon after, Rudy was pregnant. The father was Knuckles (her son).
-Rudy gave birth to five kittens. I took the cutest of the litter, a grey tortoiseshell named after Millie Small.
-Now all the male cats were neutered except Butt-Butt, who Samia still was convinced was gay. Rudy, the only girl, was not spayed.
-Rudy got pregnant again. I adopted one of the cats, who we named after Prince Buster.

So now Millie is Buster's older half sister, and Buster is Millie's uncle. Actually, Millie might be her own aunt.

Enough of that. Here's a picture. Don't worry, they won't ever have kittens.

(racetraitor has an alibi for, Fri 15 Jun 2007, 3:19, Reply)

Chlorine
Hey - anyone else got a cat that's hooked on chlorine - we can't get the bugger off our swimmies when we get back from the pool, he nicks them off the radiator and gets well stoned on them.... Is he just weird???
(ruminator Never knowingly overestimated, Fri 15 Jun 2007, 1:39, Reply)

Persephone, Goddess of the greek underworld.
I have a Cat called Persephone, either after the goddess of the greek underworld, or a planet from Joss Whedons Firefly, I'm just not sure.

I came back from a party one morning rather hung over, I'd left her and her sister stockpiles of brandname cat food and biscuits so they didnt have anything to complain about.

I walked through the door and promptly callapsed on my bed. well that was the plan.

Perse Face. as she is lovingly referred too jumps up with her favourite shoelace based toy and makes it clear I am needed for the proceedings.

I threw it away and went back to checking how many brain cells i'd lost. She runs after it. picks it up, jumps back on the bed. Stops, puts it down and walks over to me. Looks me in the eyes.

the she bloody bops me on the nose with a left hook! I'm getting fisty cuffs from a damn cat.

she wasnt too content with my bewildered giggling and kept up the Rocky impression.
(Faldor, Fri 15 Jun 2007, 1:34, Reply)

Oversized Vermin
One night recently there was this scuffling and banging at the catflap and in bursts this HUGE mother rat, with Coltrane the cat in hot pursuit.

He'd managed to paralyze one of it's back legs so it dragged itself at high speed across the lounge floor, squirting blood and rat poos and emitting this horrific banshee-like screech and disappeared behind a bookcase.

Great. Now we had an enormous, injured, highly pissed off rat loose in the house. What to do? Somehow, I got it into a box with a blanket over the top and carried it outside, the rat screeching and trying to hurl itself out of the box and onto my neck.

Once outside, I grabbed a shovel and nudged the box over, frantically trying to bludgeon the monster rat as it disappeared into the bush at about the speed of sound. The cat shot after it while we rushed inside and locked all the windows and doors, feeling quite lucky not to have had our faces ripped off.

Coltrane has since toned down his nocturnal hunting trips, thank goodness.
(punk duality, Fri 15 Jun 2007, 0:50, Reply)

Another weird cat.
I used to have a very fat and grumpy cat called Felix. Every afternoon he'd climb up a tree to the roof of the garage and then sit outside my window and scream his lungs out to be let in. If no one was home, he was trapped on the hot roof without any way of getting down. I'd let him in when I came from school, he'd take a stroll around the house, pee in a bookshelf or in the shower, eat some catfood and then walk around and scream and make noises until someone let him out again. He did the same thing every day for many years and he spent about one hour per day inside the house until he (finally)was run over by a car. I can't really understand why I didn't just leave him on the roof...
(Saratron, Thu 14 Jun 2007, 23:59, Reply)

Kill or cure
Many years ago we had miniature schnauzer mother and daughter Lucie and Sally. Then the daughter of the house decided she wanted a cat and we adopted one about a year old and called Susie. How would the three get on? Nobody knew. We decided, therefore, that there was only one way to find out. We put the dogs in the dining room and threw the cat in after them and shut the door. There was a loud scuffling and squealing as the dogs went to investigate and the cat streaked up the curtains. All eventually went quiet and we left them alone for half an hour. When we slowly opened the door on the expected carnage all three were lying in a sleepy bundle in front of the fire.

Compare and contrast this with out present cat and dog, who treat one another with contempt apart from having a taste for one another's food!
(The Jannie, Thu 14 Jun 2007, 22:26, Reply)

oreilles de lapin
i had a rabbit,but only 'half a rabbit' with out its quintessential feature,ears.i still miss douglas,not that he'd ever know "WHAT?!" he'd say (if alive and anthropomorphic)

R.I.P douglas the lugg-less :(
(greedygraham, Thu 14 Jun 2007, 21:51, Reply)

small furry things
TheFlyingGerbil - we had Russian Dwarf Hamsters too and had the same experience as you. Ours were called Boxer and Biter - when you put your hand in the cage Biter always bit your fingers while Boxer would stand there waving his front paws like a mini pugilist. Anyhoo one day and realised for the past day or two we had only ever seen one hamster at a time for a couple of days. We found the half eaten corpse of Boxer under the bedding.

We had a normal hamster too who went for a wander one day round the room, couldn't find him, daughter opens the door to the kitchen to be greeted by an almighty SQUEEEEEEEEK - little bugger had been climbing up the gap between the door and the frame and was now suspended halfway up the door by one paw. Mind you, he did have a habit of climbing the curtains and falling off, hitting the TV, the shelf and then the floor before shooting off for more trouble.
(Tyrion, Thu 14 Jun 2007, 20:35, Reply)

I'm a long time lurker, very recent poster & slave to two wonderful border collie cross doggies and 3 disapproving cats.

All of my pets are rescues, I'm one of those bleeding heart types that needs to save the world. My husband has now unfortunately put a cap on the number of pets we can have in the household since I brought the last cat home (she followed me, I swear!! They all follow me...).

We've had Roggie - our border collie X we're guessing blue heeler since he was a puppy, he's around 5 now & causing quite a bit of trouble with dog on dog aggression. We're currently in rehab & hopefully with a bit of perseverence we'll have him snuggling up to small little furry creatures at the dog park in no time. Roggie's favourite past times include gnawing on chicken frames, drooling while watching you eat, chasing the cats, and barking at other dogs. Roggie loves broccoli and mushrooms, so much so that we've considered substituting his usual liver treats we use at training for little slices of button mushies! He's also very good at standing guard at the barbie while we're grilling snags. What a good watchdog he is! By the way, my husband named Roggie. Yes, I'm aware it's a stupid name. My husband has been banned from naming the kids.

Our girl, Bella, is approximately 3 & a border collie cross kelpie. She was dragged kicking & screaming (read that as she all too happily leapt into our car & practically turned the ignition on herself to get away from the place) from the RSPCA in August last year. We wanted Roggie to have a playmate, (um, I wanted to get a doggy for myself anyway) and took a while to source a doggy that would have a complementing temperament plus have pretty much the same activity level as Roggie. Bella was the perfect lady for the job. She's absolutely mad, hyperactive, and completely devoted :) She's a total star at obedience training & I reckon she's going to make an excellent agility dog. She's a mad squeaky fan & is happiest when she's plopped in her dog bed trying to kill her new squeaky. I've learnt to buy the good, expensive, tough squeakies for her! I've also learnt to not buy store-brand tennis balls either, as those also tend to suffer in her jaws! Bella is also a keen swimmer, with no water source or mud pond left unexplored...I've learnt to live with the "wet dog smell" in my car *sigh*

So anyway, on with the pix I promised...please excuse the general crappyness of the images, I'm a terrible photographer armed only with a mobile phone!

Bella doing her favourite "nom nom nom" on a juicy bone:



Roggie, action shot!



Baggins, our neighbourhood watchcat, doing what he does best: looking grumpy because he's just been woken up



Themis, the elder statesman, too fat to actually fit inthe sink for a submish to catsinsinks.com:



Our newbie Mozart (or Mozzie), catching a snooze before she gets evicted from the doggy bed:



Gawd, ok, I've waffled on for ages. Please forgive me, my internal brevity censor has been blinded by all the whizzbang doodads and a blank page to type on :)
(Crazy Cat Lady <!!!>, Thu 14 Jun 2007, 18:55, Reply)