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 dog does this too. He’s not really a dog though. He’s a cat in golden clothing

They will wait for me to clean the litter trays, then all queue up and use them. They have also decided amongst themselves that one tray is for poo and one is for wee, so they will use one, then go to the other and use that!

I know it’s meant to be a tray for each cat +1, but we had two trays completely unused for months because they prefer their own little system.

Also waiting for your arse cheeks to touch the bottom of the bath and then going for a big, smelly dump in the tray next to the bath 😒

Our cat thinks we should get up as late as 6:30 most mornings. To be fair she'd prefer dawn, regardless of its being mid-summer and therefore around 3am, but she knows now not to push her luck. I'm a light sleeper and DH is not. So to wake us up, she has to pat DH's face with a paw, gradually increasing the force exerted as well as the extent the claws protrude. So many times I've woken up suddenly to the sound of a husbandy yelp, if I'm not awake already because she's miaowed at me. If I just mumble her name and not get up, she now extends the claws into the terribly expensive duvet cover and just... tweak. The sounds of pricy threads snagging had me at 100% consciousness in record time, and unfortunately our cat is quite bright for a cat and noticed this immediately. So the next time she wanted my attention, straight for fabric jugular with snag! The bizzom.

Bit too fussy about food, she wants all chicken strands to be about 4mm maximum and if I've missed any with the scissors - oh yes, I'm a mug - she'll reject them, all outcast and alone in the dish. Unless of course you give her some real meat (which she'll sit up and beg for) she'll tear into it like a miniature lion, suddenly remembering what those carnassial teeth are for...

Eats everything. And I mean bloody everything.

He's a rescue pug but I'm fairly convinced that we've been mis-sold an actual pig. People think pugs are these delicate little lapdogs, people are wrong. He's a little tank and ridiculously good obsessed. In the time we've had him, he has eaten:

• an Easter egg, including the foil
• snails. Multiple times. He likes the crunch.
• half a dead bird (other half was missing otherwise I'm sure it would have been an entire dead bird)
• a discarded doner kebab he found under a bush (magical kebab bush must now be rigourously inspected by him every time we walk past it just in case it produces more food)
• a buffet
• mealworms that someone was throwing down for starlings at the park, he hoovered them up
• a live bird that he somehow managed to catch despite having the agility skills of a sausage roll (bird was spat out, unharmed, and carried on nesting in our bird box)
• sand
• snow
• contents of the fruit bowl
• a whole packet of Dentastix that he snuck from the cupboard to his bed
• a half-cooked burger that he snuck off the barbecue (no idea how he didn't burn himself)
• carrots that he dug out of the veggie patch
• my lunch (I'm still bitter about it)

For clarification, we do supervise him but he's so fast and so sneaky. The buffet was on the dining table and he somehow managed to climb up onto the table while no one was in the room. The heart medicine was when the pharmacy posted our delivery through the door and he got to the package before we did. Fruit bowl was when we first got him, it didn't occur to me I'd come back from the loo to find him face down in the apples.

Cat 1: Fucks off to a farm miles up the road for days/weeks at a time until we locate him and drag him home (he has to wear an AirTag - GPS does before we can successfully locate him). What’s really annoying is he is so affectionate and delightful when he is actually home!
Cat 2: Miaows in my mouth at 5am. Likes to lick my face/nibble my ears/snuggle with his face pressed against mine all night. Also can’t understand the microchip cat flap so can’t get in unless we ‘answer the cat door bell’. But he’s the most reliable for coming in when called in the evening.
Cat 3: Ruthless murderer. She’s killed a vole and a bird today, and she’s currently torturing another vole in the kitchen. She’s also long-haired and has a sensitive tummy so I frequently have to brush diarrhoea out of her tail/bum fluff 🤢
Chickens: Refuse to go to bed in their own house and instead roost on a shelf in a storage shed. Lay eggs under bikes. Frequently shit in DH’s workshop.
Crested Gecko : Absolutely cannot fault her. 10/10 pet. Comes out, jumps about a bit, goes back in terrarium. Minimal maintenance or fuss as the springtails sort out all her waste, and feeding locusts soon gets rid of any fears of creepy crawlies you might have.

My cat comes to the floor in front of the sofa or chair and stares very hard at me to be fed. If ignored, he starts to scratch things.

One of my cats eats his food with his paws. Not content with thus making a massive mess, he actually drags the meat though his water bowl before loudly gulping it down. (Main Coon)

Not long after, he mostly spews it all up on the floor. No amounts of slow eating bowls or lick mats have changed this.

I am sorry but I have had to laugh out loud at some of the creatures you own 😂😂😂 Best thread in a long time!

My ten year old cat has decided he wants to sleep in our room at night, which I don't mind, he has his own bed he sleeps in.

No, what annoys me is we leave the door open so he can leave if he wants to eat or whatever but he still bites me to wake me up so I can walk him to the open door.

I also don't feed him to his liking, he prefers to be fed by DH even though I will garnish his breakfast with Dreamies to encourage him to eat his unsatisfactorily served food.

He's a bit of an arsehole frankly, but he's our arsehole. He's a rescue, came to us at five years old as his old owner had dementia and it had progressed to the point she couldn't care for him and was actually mistreating him. He's still incredibly pleased if we give him new toys and play with him and loves to be brushed. But he also bites me and seems convinced I'm going to get locked in the garage if I go to get something from the chest freezer - in fact he tends to try and chase me back into the house if I go in the garden, I think he thinks I need looking after.

I used to have a beautiful and very friendly cat who would come home smelling of fish and scented washing powder or fabric conditioner as if he'd been lying on clean clothes (I only use unscented). I am convinced he had convinced at least one elderly neighbour that he was unloved and unfed.

He died unfairly young - he was only seven - of cancer, but he lived a good, happy life, and I'm sure he had multiple people suckered with his claims to be starving.

We have rescue lurchers. The biggest fluffy one will expertly pick the pockets of any jacket, and he doesn't care if you are wearing it or not. You have to remember to hang coats up high and do up buttons.

The other one, younger, likes the dog toys scattered messily all around the garden. If you put them away in their box, he storms outside in a massive fury and carefully gets all the toys out, and throws them round the garden.

Both of them will drink tea and coffee from mugs if you leave them unguarded, abd stupidly think they are asleep. They aren't. They wish we would piss off so they can steal some dog treats and wash them down with tea.

As soon as the dog sees me or anyone else she has to pick something up to present to you. We have bought her plenty of toys but goes for whatever is close. It has caused some interesting moments with guests particularly when she takes knickers from the linen basket.

Since she was a puppy she has been a paper shredder. If she finds a discarded tissue she quietly lies down with it and carefully tears it up. It’s almost like it’s therapeutic. Because she’s never grown out of it we have learnt to avoid laving stuff out that she will shred. She no longer shreds books only items placed in the bin. Sometimes I give her a box to rip up, I s like the ultimate treat, similar to giving my son bubble wrap to pop.

My dog is convinced that anyone that rings the doorbell is an assassin

But have you been assassinated yet? No? Well his vigilance is paying off 😳

My dog eats other dog’s poo. Continuously - everytime we go for a walk she’ll find some. The scruffy bastards that don’t clean up after their dogs annoy me more though

My car is all over me, then will decide she’s had enough and instead of just walking away, will bite or scrab. Does it to nobody else but I’m the one she follows about. I honestly can’t read her!!

Dog- hears cat miaowing in the morning and tries to dig under the door. Also sits and watches you if you’re eating. The guilt!

Cat 1 - carpet-surfing. The vet can't do much for his itchy bum apparently, as the issue would soon recur.

Cat 2 - insisting on using a litter tray rather than the garden, and sometimes pooing next to the tray instead of in it.

We had one of those - she used to come home smelling of lily of the valley talcum powder. We think she had several back-up owners and presumably one of them was an elderly lady.

Mine does that. Barks like the door is for him. He also walks into rooms like he has a warrant.

My tortie cat has a weird habit of licking my plants, all none toxic , but shes not chewing, its licking obsessively especially my calatheas . If we try to move her she growls and swipes 😆 she also does the same with certain artificial ones, its so annoying. We've had to move loads 🤣 she also likes to be up high and jumps on top of doors and sits there watching

You've gotta a point 😂

But when it's the same Evei delivery guy who visits frequently he's either playing a very long game or just not here to kill me off!

I have two Frenchies, the breed is renowned for farting. A friend walks one of them then takes him to his local pub. Everyone complains about his stinky farts 🤪. We’ve tried different foods but it doesn’t make any difference. Whilst out walking him one day a complete stranger came up to me and said “is that Wilfie” , puzzled I asked how he knew him, he said I know him from the pub where he’s renowned for his flatulence, bless 🤣

Dear George isn't with us anymore. When he was, it was his farting. Got a feeling greyhounds are notorious for it

We had one of those, too (strangely, only ever had one cat who did this). He'd convinced half the estate that he was a neglected stray and several people would let him in to sleep on their bed, get fed and fussed and generally spoilt. This went on for a good year or more till I met one of his "alternative" homes and she mentioned the stray one eyed cat she fed. I had to tell her no, he's not stray, no he won't stay in while I'm at work and yes, he has taught himself to use your cat flap so he can come and go as he pleases.

He was still always welcomed at everyone's and they all asked after him when they saw me. He was a little star and I missed him for years after he died.

Elderly rescue dog. She pretends she can't hear me but can hear a packet or the fridge door being opened from 30ft away. I ask her to come under a blanket or sit up on the settee. Nope. She ignores me, then, a few minutes later, does exactly what I asked as if it was all her idea 🙄

My cat,after using the litter tray, wipes his shitty arse on my dining room window ledge and against the newly painted white walls. He also has the loudest miaow and my neighbours must think he is neglected as he’s constantly yelling to be let in the house. He sniffs at his expensive cat food in disdain and walks away. He stole some homemade meatballs from the kitchen side yesterday. He’s a little shit but we love him.