Do any of you have a pet that you actually just can't fucking stand?

[mycatisannoying]

My cat. Approx 11 years old and counting! I've had him for a decade. A part of me does love him, but he's a knob and lessens my quality of life rather than add anything to it. He's so whiney and food obsessed and I am seldom able to sleep the whole night through because of him.
When he departs I shall be sad, but I won't miss him, and there will be relief in a way.
He has a wonderful life here with us, and I won't give him away, because he's old and is our responsibility.
Have you ever had a love/hate relationship with a family pet?

I have a failed foster cat that I kept because quite frankly no one else would want her.

She hates people (rightly, she was abused) though she tolerates me. Rescue thought she was 8, I'd say more like 12/14 but I suspect she's going to hang around hating people for years as she's tough as old boots.

I love her but I'd not pick her if I was walking into a recuse looking.

Who am I kidding. I always go for the ones no one else wants.

I have a love/mild aversion relationship with the horse. But that's because she has a habit of trying to bog off with me if the squirrel she's seen 40 times looks at her funny.

I don’t hate our dog but I wish we hadn’t got him, he’s a lovely dog but I’m just not a dog person. I hate how clingy and needy he is and much prefer the cat who I can’t imagine being without

@Hallowbat

I don’t hate our dog but I wish we hadn’t got him, he’s a lovely dog but I’m just not a dog person. I hate how clingy and needy he is and much prefer the cat who I can’t imagine being without

I agree, our dog (see above) was the first dog I've ever owned, I didn't realise how much energy goes into them, I stupidly thought she'd be out with my husband walking for miles, but no, she couldn't walk too far. After bringing up a child who'd never sleep, never stop talking and generally very needy I just didn't have much left to give to the dog. I sound awful but it was shocking how much hard work I had to put in.

I once had a rat who was just a really horrible person. Properly tame pet rats generally don't bite humans whatever the provocation, though some timid ones may occasionally do an "oh I was asleep, you surprised me" nip, and you might get the occasional "sorry, thought you were food". This rat came to me as part of a mother daughter pair, and while the mother was the softest, soppiest rat you could hope to meet, the daughter was plain mean. If you opened the cage and put your hand in to pick up another rat, even, she would run over and bite you. Proper, vicious, separating the bottom teeth for maximum pain and damage bites. Unheard of in a tame, well cared for pet rat. I think she had something actually wrong with her.

@BabyInTheJungle

We have a cat who is a big dopey loving softy but drives us absolutely mad. He is so greedy and will eat anything at all, consequently he will randomly puke up whatever he's munched and always manages to get it on the rug and not the wooden floor. He has no concept of personal space or boundaries and if he wants attention he will damn well get it come hell or high water.

If he sees a hand, any hand, doing anything, he assumes the hand wants to stroke him and will attempt to insert himself under it. Sending a text? He thinks you want to stroke him. Chopping an onion? He thinks you want to stroke him. 3 months old and waving your hand about erratically? He thinks you want to stroke him. Sound asleep and happen to have a hand attached to your body? Ah yes, you want to stroke the cat of course!

He sounds like my sort of cat. I used to have a job where there were meetings at my house once a week. Dcat used to jump on the table and wrap his paws around people's pens to help them with their writing. Luckily they found this adorable, but I spent half the meeting distracted trying to chuck him into the garden. He'd just sneak back through the cat flap and sidle onto a laptop.

He is the light of my life- but we watched them all for over an hour in the pet shop before choosing. His sister was violent and mean, others were bland but he was just good tempered and sweet the whole time. He wasn’t the breed we initially wanted but we got him for his personality. I have never changed that opinion- he’s still good tempered and sweet.

I have a love/hate relationship with my dog. I do love him dearly but he is a total pain in the arse. He follows me round the house and has been kicked and trodden on so many times I can't believe he's not learnt to keep away from where I'm walking!

@Arabellla @BusterGonad
Yes I think if you are looking for a cuddly small pet, guinea pigs are a much safer bet than rabbits. As long as any children in the home are old enough to understand that they are fragile and need careful handling. We had loads when I was young. We didn't mean to have loads, but the one we called 'Lady' turned out to be 'Laddy' and it kind of went from there. Laddy was a great pet actually. Wonderful temperament and surprisingly intelligent. We had him in the house all the time and he could do simple tricks with toys. He had a whole harem of wives and they all got along famously. You do need more than one though, they're very social.

No but I have a cat who hates me. He literally lowers his body away from me if I try to stroke him and looks horrified sometimes when he sees me. It breaks my heart.

We have two cats, one is funny and affectionate and very clever, the other is mainly just a miaowing, gobbling and vomiting machine. She will raid the bin, tear open packets of food if I leave them out. She’s old and I do love her, and very occasionally she wants a nice snuggle and pet and I feel really close to her. But a lot of the time it’s just getting under my feet and whining because she constantly wants food, then throwing up somewhere inconvenient/ hard to clean / sneakily placed so someone stands in it 🤢

She’s had multiple vet visits and tests to try to fix the vomiting and hungriness but there’s nothing wrong with her. She’s just a greedy git!

However she’s not as bad as an absolute wanker of a cat I once lived with who belonged to a flatmate. She would literally hide and lie in wait so she could attack and bite you. She would also just whack people with her paw - not just scratching but kind of hitting, with this fucking mean face on. I was terrified of her.

What I love about this thread that is despite your pets being arseholes, you keep them, take them to the vet, put up with them and don't just foist them on.... that in itself is incredibly lovely

No, but I've had pets that can't stand me.

My chickens are so well looked after. We built them a beautiful little wooden house, we feed them very expensive layers mash, and supplement this with insects and some fresh fruit and veg. I even made them an enrichment obstacle course and everything!

They peck at my toes when I refill their feed, and run away from me when I try to feed them a handful of seeds. They basically act like I'm this horrible, scary bitch when I literally could not be nicer to them.

As you can tell, I'm rather over invested in the whole thing and have really embarassed myself in my obvious desperate attempts at trying to get in their good books.

This is such a hilarious thread, the story of the randy tortoise had me dying 😂

Mine is a pet of the past. A donkey, called geronimo. I bought two at auction, not sure how I got away with that as I was only twelve or so, but there we are. I paid, I think, £75 for the pair, used some of my lambing pay. Fred was grey, with a cross on his back and everything a pet donkey should be, sweet and loving and you could even ride him. Geronimo was, frankly, a cunt. He kicked me twice before I even got him into the box to come home, he trampled me as soon as I went to open to back gates on the box when we got home then as I was tying their haynets to the barn wall, he bit my wrist and wouldn’t let go. The more I tried to escape, the harder he clenched his bistly donkey teeth. I should’ve admitted I’d made a mistake but my pride wouldn’t let me, I had the -laughing- judging eyes of my uncle and my grandad on me after all. He never improved and that first day set the tone really. Arsehole.
Darling Fred of course was a darling, and never changed.
I miss them terribly.

My youngest dog. She's adorable, but she's just unstoppable.

She doesn't understand that the fastest way to get to something isn't always a straight line.

There was a toy she wanted under the bed. So she tried to dig through the mattress to get to it.

She will sit in her crate and whine, door open behind her, because she wants to go out through one of the corners.

At 3am.

Her greatest delight is playing with the cats. The cats are less delighted to have 15kg of enthusiasm and zero restraint play bowing at them. So the spare room has a baby gate on it, to give them a bit of peace.

She's worked out how to jump over the gate. No. Not jump. Fling herself, all limbs flailing, with all the elegance and grace of a rocket-powered sack of spuds.

And then can't get out again.

So you'll hear leap/THUD/shake. Then outraged yowling. Then the piteous whimpering of a beagle that's on the wrong side of a closed gate, and just doesn't understand how that happened.

At 3am.

Total twat dog. Total force of nature. Love her to bits.

@altiara

Yes, my cat was a knob too! Im not sure how many years it was before she slept through the night, but the baby only took 2 months yet there I was getting up every night for a cat!

Getting up for the cat??? That's a joke, surely, if not then you deserve all the sleepless nights! Remember, you never own a cat, the cat owns you.

I think we have the same cat OP Mine is also 11 and a complete moan. He just never shuts up. I even took him to the vet to see if there’s something wrong and he’s miaowing out of pain. Nope. He just likes the sound of his own voice. He also sheds like crazy nothing like the other two cats—his hair is EVERYWHERE. I mean he wants for nothing but he do certainly have a very love hate relationship

@Pancakeorcrepe
Do you think there are some pets that are just generally arseholes or is it always the owners fault in your eyes?
I've seen extremely well behaved pets with owners who make little effort and I've seen horrendously behaved pets with owners trying everything they can. Is it sometimes that the pet just isn't trainable? And I'm not talking about damaged pets here rather pets that have had one secure home.

My mum's last cat. We had 5 at one point when I was growing up and I loved them all dearly, they had different personalities and needs but were all lovely in their own way.
The last one hated me with a passion, tbf that was probably because when mum went away and I looked after him I didn't measure up to his expectations and he always managed to injure himself or get ill just before or during, meaning I had to either wrangle him into a box and off to the vets (who met us with "Oh, it's him" 😒) or get tablets down him/clean a wound.
He tolerated my mum as long as she behaved herself and was lovely with my young (at the time) DD, playful but not nasty and never scratched or bit her, just took himself off if he'd had enough of being fussed by her, but he detested me, my sister and brother and made sure we knew it.
Would hide in the banisters and claw you as you walked past the stairs, attack your feet, try and take food literally out of your hand and fight you for it if you objected. He also terrorised the poor dog, who was the sweetest dog I've ever met, took flying leaps from high furniture onto the dog or us and generally made life a bit of a misery.
I cried when he died though, he was certainly a 'character'!

My cat. She’s about 17 but thinks she’s still a kitten, gets combed about 5 times a day but still manages to chew off the tiny bit of fur under her armpit I missed and barf everywhere. She’s allergic to our other cats special food so we invested in a microchip feeder - she waits til it’s opened up, barges Cat 2 out of the way, eats all the food and barfs everywhere. Very well toilet trained unless there is a doormat, any doormat, literally anywhere in the house and wees all over it. Insists on sleeping either in DH’s armpit or on my pillow, scratched at the bedroom door for nearly 2 hours straight the one time we took a stand and shut it. Sits just inches out of my toddlers reach staring her out. Likes to sit just over your shoulder if you’re eating or drinking anything on the sofa, still haven’t forgiven her for trying to claw something out of my mouth one time and catching my tongue . DH told her off once for chewing the brand new bit he’d got for his bike and she took a shit in the shower just before he got in. Never done it before or since. Obviously we adore her and were beside ourselves when we thought she’d run away a few months ago (got stuck under the cot because she’s chubby and figured she’d have a nap before calling for help) but she’s a gigantic PITA.

I love mine dearly, tho too un cuddly for me, I think I was fobbed off when adopted, doesn’t knee sit, moody, and seems off, next time a cuddlier one!
Right now I’d be happy if she vanished

We've got one fish left in our fish tank. Its a cherry barb, I swear its about 7 years old and attacks anything else we try to put in the tank (including more cherry barbs). It's quite a nice tank and a bit wasted on one fish!

I’ve only owned one pet as an adult and I don’t think I’ll ever bother again. I thought having a cat would be a great thing for our family, it’s nice to have a family pet and DC were desperate for one. I didn’t mind the cat as a character, he was a very placid lovely natured cat and he wasn’t a noisy whiny cat or anything.

Issue was he pissed everywhere. Had numerous litter trays dotted around the house following advice online and I tried lots of different types of litter and litter trays too. He would piss in the tray and I’d clean it out daily so they weren’t dirty trays but he’d still always piss all over the house too. We couldn’t have a door mat or bath mat anymore because he just pissed on every single one. He’d piss on the post every day so had to buy a box. Pissed on my student’s assignments one day which was really the end of the line for me. Pissed on DC’s toys, clothes, blankets, curtains, carpets so all had to be thrown and replaced. Honestly cost me an absolute fortune trying to resolve it with vet trips, feliway products, catnip, different trays and litter etc as well as replacing the ruined items.

Only solved the problem by giving him to a cat sanctuary in the end. Did it with an extremely heavy heart because he genuinely was a lovely natured cat, just had this horrendous pissing habit.

Our cat is hateful. She hates us all. No stroking or petting allowed. No cuddles on the sofa. No TOUCHING! She will bite you if you try. All she wants us for is food. The only thing she likes in the house is old lady dog.

Current kitten. Just about due his first vaccinations and genuinely debating whether to bother shelling out £90 on something I hope just walks off and stays lost when he’s finally allowed outside.

Absolutely hate the thing, so does husband, kids love him.

In part because he was sourced for me by a relative who decided getting him at 8 weeks old from someone who hadn’t bothered to flea or worm him, hence we ended up with an anaemic poorly kitten.

He’s mildly cute to look at occasionally, and fun to antagonise, but definitely avoiding microchipping him so he doesn’t get returned to us when he’s let out for the first time.

Popcorn at the ready.