What's the weirdest thing your pet is scared of?

[PawsAndCuppa]

My friend's dog is terrified of cardboard boxes but completely ignores thunderstorms 😅

Pets can be so strange sometimes.

What's the weirdest thing your dog or cat is scared of?

Vacuum cleaners? Bananas? Plastic bags? Random household objects?

I'd love to hear some funny stories.

Both of my dogs have freaked out at traffic cones. Not rows of them on the road, but the random one abandoned somewhere it doesn't belong.

Paper fluttering or blowing in the wind

DH shivering audibly (“brrrr!”)

Riding in the car

One cat was frightened of a cucumber he tried to hit it. Another was terrified of rustling bags we had to fold them up
gery carefully. Present one not much though he was terrified when he saw snow and went and hid in the wardrobe.

My mum's cat doesn't like new (therefore unfamiliar) flip flops.

My cat is petrified of foil (and therefore by default the foil drawer)

Our cat who has been with us 3 weeks is scared of my husband apparently. But not if the man is eating anything the cat thinks he would like a bit of. Husband walks into room empty handed- cat does mad panicked scuttle away as if pursued by hounds of hell. Husband walks into room with plate of chicken wings or bowl of ice cream- cat stares at him, stalks him, pounces without fear.

So my answer is "men who are not carrying food the cat would like to eat".

I dont have a dog but often have my adults ds's dog

He loves to go in the garden and start singing the song of his people

However,if another dog starts barking back,it is the most frightening thing hes ever heard and he shoots back in the house

If ds is standing there,he takes cover behind him

He's also scared of the hoover and tries to bite it

He's terrified of gravestones-i once took him for a walk in a graveyard and he froze at the sight of them

Fine walking around the graveyard but scared of walking past them

He's a huge,soft loon-picture of the nutter

My Jack Russell terrorist (not a typo) is frightened of the clothes horse, bubbles, cats, large birds, water and curtains if the wind is moving them.
She once hid behind me when a crow looked at her.

My dog is scared of his own reflection.

Pigeons. Other birds seem to be ok. Odd cat.

And the robot vacuum, obviously.

My cat is afraid of flower leaves when they fall on the garden. She will edge around them, glaring as if they are going to attack her. She's fine when they are on the plant ?

I have a very friendly and confident robin who comes right up to me for snacks. My little old dog was fine with this, until one day the bird appeared on the doorstep of my open front door.
Dog would not come near the hallway, let alone the front door until he was gone.
In warm weather I have my front door open for most of the day so that the dog can wander in and out.
I always know if the robin has come to visit, as my dog is in the furthest corner of the back of the house just incase the robin gets him 😆

I was once stopped at traffic lights when my Jack Russell went absolutely bananas.

She was freaked out by the man printed on the side of the Autoglass Windshield van stopped beside us.

You should ask this in the horse topic! Horses are scared of very random things. We had one once who spooked at a large leaf at ground level which was wet and the sun was reflecting off it. Same horse also spooked at a log on the grass verge which has been laying there for at least 15 years!

Weirdly I think many cats are afraid of cucumbers. There are YouTube videos of them freaking out.

My sister in law’s horse is terrified of Duke of Edinburgh backpacks. Kids doing the DoE walk around his field.

I love this 😂

Our dog is scared when people stand very still or move very slowly, especially if they are in silhouette. He also goes apeshit when we set off the car windscreen wipers so he doesn’t get to travel in the car very often.

I used to ride a friend's horse. She hated the killer chicken who sat on the farm gate along the lane, and an abandoned sofa in a lay-by that was there for years, but always just as scary.

One of my rescues reacts in fear to anything and everything. It's often something she thinks she's seen, so often turns out to be literally nothing, occasionally it's a leaf blowing in the wind. My favourite was a time I walked her when the wheelie bins were out waiting to be collected, a neighbour has a large sticker of a dog on theirs'. My dog was losing her shit, even when we walked past it and she must have realised it wasn't a real dog, she refused to back down!

My cat is terrified of anything that makes a rustling sound when you move it. A bag, a coat, paper etc she’s a weirdo.

Balloons
Anyone in high vis wear
Red vehicles (think this is because of the post van)
Baths
Teenage boys
Couldn't care less about fireworks

We had a collie that was scared of sheep. Would literally leg it if a sheep turned to look at her.

Hiccups. My dog is terrified.

Even if you try and hiccup quietly. Its like she can sense the change in your breathing.

Even if you're in the house but in a different room she still knows. I once spent a whole evening watching TV on my laptop in the garden office because I had hiccups I couldn't get rid of.

She's also very unsure about DH laughing. She's not scared as such but she gets very unsettled by it. Only DH's laugh. It's a perfectly normal laugh, not one of those really extravagant laughs men do . Everyone else is allowed to laugh, just not DH.

The trouble is that when DH tries to suppress his laughter for the dog's sake, he gets hiccups. I think the only solution is to LTB, right?

Anything that flaps like a plastic bag or one of those car covers when it’s windy. He also hates the vacuum but doesn’t mind fireworks or thunder

Big Lionel often expresses fear though hissing.

He is scared of the plumber/boiler service man (don't know why, he's a lovely man and has been here several times, so not a total stranger).

However due to this, the plumber is scared of him, I actually had to escort him past the cat last time he was here.

The cat was scared of one of the baby's stuffed toys. Anywhere we wanted to exclude the cat from, we'd put the red toy elephant in the doorway and he'd stay away.