Cats and dogs know a lot of ways to undermine human authority without, say, biting us or scratching us or chasing us into the bathroom. Dogs rub it in by sometimes pretending to feel guilty about it.
Shredding a roll of paper towels or eviscerating a cushion–that’s not subtle. But packing oneself into a goldfish bowl–that deserves a merit badge of something.
I just had to post this video again, it’s so funny.
Watch the cat try his level best to ignore the guinea pigs, who are doing everything they can think of to stir him up. Is this cat auditioning for a job as one of those Buckingham Palace guards? I wonder if they test those guards’ responses to guinea pigs. They’re not supposed to move or speak or crack a smile, no matter what.
But if a cat can’t ignore these guinea pigs, who can?
Let’s face it, you can’t do this with your goldfish. But cats are ideal for cuddling up and snoozing with. Even babies think so.
Our cat Peep excels at putting her humans to sleep. Her sister, Robbie, doesn’t bother. Well, nobody ever said they’re all alike.
Come to think of it, I do know someone who cuddles with his fish. But that is all I want to know about it.
These are billed as “Adorable Cats.” I’ll go along with that.
BTW, I know exactly what’s going on with those goldfish. They’re used to being fed by hand, and when they see the cat leaning over their pond, they think he’s going to feed them, too. My turtle never gave up hope that our cat Henry would feed him.
Fun False Fact: Warren G. Harding had a pet clam named Milton. He invested a great deal of time in trying to teach Milton tricks.
It never fails. You buy your cat a really snazzy (and probably expensive) cat toy, and all she wants is the paper bag it came in.
As you will see from this video, this romantic yen for paper bags is inborn in cats. Little kittens have it. I’ll bet if you rattled a paper bag near a pregnant cat, the babies in her womb would get rowdy. “Oh, we just can’t wait to be born! A world filled with paper bags awaits us!”
Why does that pet rat have a strand of spaghetti draped over his back? Where did that sheep learn how to herd a sheepdog? And why can’t dogs maneuver pole-shaped objects through a doorway, when parrots figure it out all the time?
Some of them, though, are just having fun.
Some of these have appeared in other compilations, but that’s the breaks. They’re still good.
My favorite is the kitten gnawing on the dog’s face while the poor dog is trying to take a nap. Doesn’t he know the dog is 20 times bigger than himself? But then he probably also knows the dog won’t hurt him.
The pet I need now is a hungry chameleon to polish off these flies…
I wonder how many ghost stories got started this way–with a cat fumbling around inside the curtains, temporarily unable to get out. “There was no wind–how could there be? all the windows were closed–and yet the curtains moved hideously…” And the house gets an evil reputation for being haunted.
And then there’s the haunted bed. Betcha M.R. James was inspired by something like this.
Do you ever get the impression that there are certain everyday human activities that cats don’t approve of, and which they try, with gentle determination, to get us out of doing? Like reading, for instance. They sit on the top when you try to read it.
Sleeping is another thing they don’t think we ought to be doing a lot of. So they wake us. My cat Missy used to bring a pipe cleaner into bed and butt me with her head until I woke up and threw the pipe cleaner out of bed–so she could run after it and bring it back, and I could throw it again. This was so much more fun than letting me sleep.
Ah, well… It doesn’t take an awful lot to please them, does it?
Go figure dogs. They’ll roll around on top of the rotting carcass of a seagull, they’ll dive headfirst into a mud puddle… and they go to pieces when you want to give them a bath. Heck, I never had that problem with my iguana. Even my sister could give him a bath.
That German shepherd in the video has the longest tale I’ve ever seen on a dog.