AIBU - Pets are stupid!

[Justagirlwholovesaboy]

Just for fun, what’s the weirdest thing which has scared your pet for no apparent reason. Tonight I learnt while walking my puppy a shadow is scary! After reassurance he’s ok, no counselling needed but wondered what others have experienced with their amazingly eccentric pets?

Also - my cat looks astonished whenever I take my glasses off or wear contact lens, as though she she thinks my glasses are actually my eyes.

I have a 70kg livestock guardian breed. His father protected flocks from wolves and bears. My dog once bailed up a pair of police officers on my property.

He’s scared of his new water bowl. Will flinch if he walks too close to it. It’s just a big steel bucket, I have no idea why he’s afraid of it, but he’d rather lick drops out of the cat bowl than drink out of his own.

My dog is scared of the iron and subsequently the ironing board. Sometimes I realise I ve left the ironing board propped up before putting it away because he isn't following me around. He's too scared to walk past it!

My pony was scared of parked cars. Moving cars he was fine with. Man hole covers and drain covers would also freak him out. And brooms propped up against something.
He was a wimp!

My old big dog used to be scared of her squeaky ball, and my Guinea pigs! She would hear them squeak and leg it!
Not so much as scared but my cockatiel hated bare feet. My DM always wore flip flops in the summer and he would charge across the floor with his wings out and attack her toes.

If you want animals scared of random things try having a horse!
Had mine 15 years, lived with a Shetland pony for a good 5 of those yet terrified of the ones in the next door field..........
Not in the slightest bit scared of big tractors, dogs, lorries, cars....... But we have a tree outside the summer field, since day one this tree has been viewed with suspicion, and is positively terrifying on occasion, to the point we can't walk past it without lots of huffing and snorting. Funny thing is he goes in the field that the tree is in during winter, and is currently scratching his arse on it! Must only be half the tree that is a monster............

My old golden retriever was scared of anything that made a noise, hoover, hairdryer, aerosol cans, thunder, fireworks, we gave her a squeaky toy it squeaked and she dropped it and hid, scared of scissors as well. She was so thick despite being a great dog. She used to be surprised by her farts, she’d stare at her arse and sniff away looking confused ‘I felt it, can smell it but I can’t see it!’ She loved stinky things and rolling in stinky things. She always needed to be carrying something due to the retriever in her blood, shevwould have been a useless fun dog though, the gun shot would have her tail between her legs and her under a bed.

A door wedge!!! Casually walking across a room and he spotted it and jumped....then went all low, wobbly and slowly crawled past. once past he ran away as fast as he could!!!

He also Ran into a fence yesterday and had to be taken to the vets for a side wound stapled closed!!! Why did he run into a fence. Because he was running away from a sheep!!! (Bare in mind this is a big supposed to be a hunter, gundog!!)

My dog hates fluorescent jackets! The jobsworths aggressive parking attendants at the train station have given him a complex.

One of our cocker spaniels, many years ago, had a thing about hot air balloons. It started when one flew quite low over our back garden one summer morning. She just stood on the lawn, staring up at this big black flying monster and barking tentatively. A year or two later, she saw another one a little further away and hid in one of the bedrooms. She soon came out with some coaxing. Daft bat.

Cat terrified of the hoover and the ironing board, bolts and hides when they come out. She's much more relaxed since she's been on meds for thyroid. In fact for DS birthday we had 8 boisterous 10 year old boys in the flat, so we designated a quiet room for her and told the boys to keep out, but she wouldn't stay in her quiet room and kept coming out to bask in the fuss and attention. She paraded into the middle of the boys and sat there waiting for them to give her fuss. Which they did.

We went away on holiday with our dog for the whole six week holiday last year. When we got back, the council had installed a new bin along our favourite dog walk. Dog jumped out of her skin and then barked ferociously at it!

The cat is scared of the usual Hoover, but also the wind. If anything more than the lightest breeze ruffles her fur she's in the house like a shot. She also hates the garden hose after I accidentally watered her one evening when she was hiding in a bush.

She really doesn't like fruit or veg. She likes to sniff everything we have in ours hands because she is a nosy cow and she looked horrified after she turned her nose up at a pear but I still ate it. Her face clearly said 'You are definitely going to die now you have eaten that!'

One of my cats is terrified of anything in a spray can - deodorant, hairspray etc - and the doorbell. Whenever it rings he will immediately fly out of the cat flap and sit on the outside table until he's sure whatever scary threat at the front door has gone. He also hates the bathroom door being shut and will scratch and yowl until whoever is inside opens it!

My cat is scared of spiders and my DS (he's 16 months), the cat will walk in the front room, if my DS is in his high chair he will stay, if he isn't, the cat will turn around and wall back out again, he isn't too bothered about my DD though 😂. I know this is about pets but my DS is scared of hand dryers and vacuum cleaners, he got this toy for Christmas that blows air out and you put a ball on top so it hovers in mid air, he was terrified at first and every time my DD turned it on he would jump and run to either me or my DM 😂, he loves it now though.
The cat is also scared of Alexa, we managed to confuse him by getting her to meow once.

Deodorant. Shits a brick at the sound.

Everything. Anything that makes noise or is even slightly bigger than him and he bolts.

My cat used to be absolutely demented for chicken. As soon as there was so much a whiff she was howling and pacing.

My dog farted so loudly the other night she frightened herself awake and hid behind me. Mostly she's frightened of the cat who lives opposite, if she thinks he's out we have to walk the other way or she sits down and won't move.

My puppy is a racist. Passed a lady with an amazing Afro the other day and she went bat shit crazy. Neither of them can deal with humans wearing hats either. The Afro lady thing was excruciatingly embarrassing I must say.

When I fostered my parrot from the parrot rescue (they retain lifelong ownership) and the local volunteer for them brought him round, I was told that he was terrified of anything red and I was to avoid offering him red food (red apples with peel on, pomegranates etc). In the early days, if I wore red clothing he would rear back in horror when I came into the room and hiss at me. In the end I worked out that it was a particular pillar box red that he was scared of and I could get away with more crimson shades. Even so, I usually go and show him a new reddish piece of clothing when I get it so he can get used to it - now he knows me and trusts me, he will usually be ok with it. I still avoid giving him red food or lining his cage with newspaper with anything red in it uppermost. No-one knows why he doesn't like red - I assume he had a frightening experience with something red in his chickhood when he belonged to someone else. (or inadvertently ate a red chilli pepper and regretted it)

My cat is petrified of heavy rain because it makes a loud noise on the roof. It's actually kind of cute though

When I got my first lakeland terrier puppy, I had an older lab cross as well.

Lakiepup used to gather up all sorts of objects and place them in Big Dog's bed, where he would lie on them in sort of "Mine, all mine" kind of way. These objects could include a dog toy or several, a shoe or two, a hairbrush, some dirty laundry (knickers and socks were favourites, retrieved from the laundry basket), a rubber wedge used to stop the bedroom door from banging in the wind and, best of all, the lavatory brush. He'd lie there like Smaug with his treasure.

If only mumsnet had been around then, he'd have known that lav brushes are the work of the devil and that taking one to bed with you was beyond the pale.

He also used to scoop tennis balls up using a small rubber ring, held in his mouth, and throw them round the living room in a game that obviously had rules of Byzantine complexity, known only to him.

He was the oddest (and naughtiest) little thing.

I recently fell off my horse over a carrier bag that dared to flap as we cantered past.

Had massive bruises for weeks over that

cat was scared of plastic bags and The Hairdryer.

then we got a dog.
for 8 months the cat was scared of the dog, kept out of his way, only appeared to eat, or to flee upstairs to a safe high perch. Then as the autumn drew in, he made a big brave decision that no dog was going to deprive him of his place in front of the fire this winter, and faced the dog down and won.

cat is now boss, and is no longer scared of The Hairdryer either.

(still can't cope with the rustle of a plastic bag though)

One of mine is scared of flies.

My dog is scared of creepy crawlies, spiders are really scary apparently, and flying insects, particularly flies, which makes summer a bit stressful.

This is not learned from me, whilst I hate flies and try to get them out of the house as quickly as possible I'm not afraid of them. I'm pretty tolerant of spiders unless they're huge, in which case I'll pick them up in a glass and put them outside.