To ask, what are your pets’ most annoying habits?

[JMSA]

We all love our pets, of course. But what do they do that bugs you?

Dog (male, nearly 11 years old): licks my dressing gown and pillowcase. So I took off my dressing gown earlier and laid it on the sofa. By the time I came back, he had licked it all around the collar and hood. Whenever I make my bed, I have to pull the quilt over the pillowcases, otherwise they’d be licked and sodden. So he basically likes to lick where my body has been! Adore him to pieces, but it’s annoying and gross.

Cat (1 1/2 year old rescue, have had her for 6 months): this habit really gets my goat! She will miaow at the back door. Obvious answer is to let her out, right? So I’ll do that but she’s not remotely interested in going out and will move away from the back door as I approach it. When she goes outside, she miaows to be let back in one minute later (no exaggeration). It’s Scotland, so unfortunately too cold just to leave the door open for her to come and go.
I love her and she’s incredibly sweet, but I will never understand cats.

My cat will race around the house post poo...hence we call it the post poo zoomies!!! Then the other cat joins in with the chase!! They sound like a herd of elephants 🤣🤣🤣 cat tax enclosed ❤️

I would say this is normal cat behaviour.

Miaowing like a banshee while hurling herself at the door handle to get into my office while I’m on work calls.
Miaoooooooooow.
Thud.
Miaoooooooooow.
Thud.
Like that. Luckily she hasn’t actually managed to get the doors open yet.

Eating furniture and wooden blinds (small parrot). Certain items of furniture now have cardboard edge protectors, not the look i was going for 🙄

Also nibbling electrical cables to bare wire (laptop on desk - fine. Laptop on lap, table lamp, travel kettle - beaky magnet) (small parrot).

Fit a cat flap. Though having said that I’ve one. My cat comes through it, walks to the front door and meows to get out and of course the servant obeys 😂

Jumping on the kitchen worktops. He gets down when told, then as soon as your back’s turned he’s up again. Costs me a small fortune on cleaning sprays!

Our dog used to snore her head off/ignore us all day, then as soon as we settled down for the evening to watch tv would constantly want to go in and out of the garden. Drove us mad (she had plenty of walks etc!)

We have a river in our garden and a resident swan. The dog hates the swan and vice versa. They square up to each other daily like thugs in a pub. There’s much barking and busking and hissing.

So annoying.

Smallest cat - takes over enough of the king sized bed that I end up sleeping on the edge or diagonally. And joining in Teams meetings so everyone can see him. Will only eat one, very expensive and sometimes hard to find, cat food.

Oldest cat - making noises like a smoke alarm with failing batteries, at stupidly early times. Then, if I don't let him out, pissing on the cat bed near my bed. Likes to eat 134 times a day, ine tiny mouthful each time.

Middle cat - eating all the food oldest doesn't eat so oldest is getting thinner, middle cat is the size of a small Rottweiler.

Middle and oldest - definitely the "I love this food, buy loads" then when I buy loads "hate this, why did you buy it?"!

Those are all males. My little girl cat is so well behaved and never any trouble. Except she snores very loudly!

I adore them all and none of them can ever do anything wrong really, they are the reason I get up every day and keep going - even if the 4am wake up calls get a bit frustrating!

We call them poomies to distinguish them from ordinary zoomies 😂

Ddog cannot go to the garden for a wee without a woof. This has led to no garden weeing before 8am or after 9pm. Always reminds me of the comedy sketch where they are shouting out "Hey! I am a DOG! Are you a DOG?" - she wakes up all the neighbourhood dogs so we end up with stereo-woofing and I imagine the neighbours cursing me every time.

It's the barking line!

We have an old house with a door at the bottom of the stairs. It was excellent for keeping cats downstairs at night. Then we got a cat who worked out how to open the door to allow the headwashers into the bedroom. Cats tongues are like sandpaper. This is not good on your forehead, arm or any exposed body part at 4am. We put a bolt on the door. Couldn't sleep with the constant rattle of the handle as she tried to open the door so we gave up and leave the door open. We now have headwashing at 4am, yowling for breakfast at 6am, trying to open the bedroom window to climb out onto the porch roof at any time, hurling oneself or chattering loudly at the window because there's birds in the tree from dawn onwards. I think we should sleep downstairs but they'd probably just follow us.

Eating any and all plastic. The vet offered him a dreamie, he ignored that, snatched the plastic pack and had to have it wrestled out his mouth like he was a Labrador or something
vet “well I never”

Put them in the bath in an inch of warm water while you clean them out. 9/10 they will crap in the bath after a few minutes of swimming and then you just clean the bath and the viv stays clean for the week. I used to breed royals, hog noses and egg eaters. Worked really well for us and we even built an en-suite onto the reptile room specifically for cleaning and swimming. Great exercise for them to add they can be pretty sedentary in small viva/rubs.

Cat has clawed the stair carpet so much it is bald in places. Other than yelling at him when we notice we haven't been able to stop it. He's got a scratching pole and about a million trees within easy access but no - stair carpet it is. It's going to cost a tonne of money to replace when he eventually dies and looks completely shit in the meantime

@TittyGajillions thats a brilliant description 🤣🤣

I have 3 cats.

One pees in the toilet, but if I forget and leave the lid down, he does it in the bath. I have 5 litter trays.

One will vomit wherever he happens to be, so if he's lying on the couch, he'll vomit over the side of it. If he's on a shelf, he'll vomit over the globe below it etc.

One won't use the cat flap and I have to let her in and out of the window. She won't use the window I have open 90% of the time anyway.

Twats.

Cat, only ever sits on my lap when I need to get up shortly. About to cook. On my lap. Need the toilet, on my lap

My beloved childhood cat did this too, my parents' stairs still have duct tape over all the edges (and the cat died over 10 years ago, time for a new carpet parents!!).

My dog is a rescue and apparently missed a crucial socialisation and training window while she was living on the streets, so despite spending many hours and thousands of pounds on trainers and behaviourists, she is basically a huge uncultured hooligan. Her worst habit is barking, god forbid anyone else or any animal tries to go about their own business within 100 feet of our house, because it sets her off and it's as loud as a gunshot. We now sleep with white noise on else she's up at all hours barking at the foxes, who couldn't give less of a shit.

She does a load of other annoying shit and although I love her and she's been part of the family for a long time, I'm sorry to say she's done it for dog ownership for me, and we won't be having another when her time comes.

ID Check:

Our cat screams to go in our back door so he can be let out the front door, all because he's too lazy to walk around the house! He's a big cat and I do be afraid the loud meowing will bug the neighbours so I do as I'm told and follow the cats orders! 🧐

We have a rescue lurcher. He showed clear signs of abuse but is now very confident. He sleeps in our bed, he can’t get close enough in the night so shifts position until he is on you. This forces the sleeper to move position until you wake in the morning almost falling out of bed!

2 cats, both inveterate lickers of plastic. They're fiends for it, I can't prise them away.

I also can't have tulips in the house, despite them being my favourite flower, because the cats snip the heads off with surgical precision.

They also "hunt" socks and then parade around the house with them, yowling wildly, usually when I am trying to get the baby down for a nap.

I've got a Patterdale terrier.

Mumsnet does not have the capacity for me list her most annoying habits. We grimly exist in a bond of mutual resentment.

(I love her to bits really, but honest to God she will be the death of me).