My H had to travel out of the country for work when my firstborn was only a few weeks old. One night while he was gone I was awakened by a loud crash followed by horrible screaming sounds. My hormone-soaked, sleep-deprived brain immediately concluded that the wall had fallen on my sleeping son’s crib (I know, I know). I rushed into the nursery, hollering his name. Of course I terrified the baby, who had been peacefully asleep, but then startled and began howling. I scooped him up and ran in the direction of another crash and screech. Our sweet, lazy cat was maniacally hurling herself at the sliding glass doors to the deck and letting out unearthly sounds because a stray cat was sashaying back and forth across the deck, seemingly taunting her through the glass. (How this cat got on the second floor deck of a condo remains a mystery to this day. How our cat even noticed him in the dark through a door covered with closed vertical blinds remains another.) Our cat was so enraged and violent that I was afraid to touch her, so I grabbed a towel, threw it over her, and tossed her into the bathroom, then settled the baby back to sleep, muttered a few curses at my absent hubby, and fell back into bed, convinced I was an abject failure as a mother and pet owner.
Now a dog story, nowhere near as dramatic as the above cat story.
For D’s 5th birthday party, she chose a 60’s tie-dye theme. We found a lot of appropriate decorations at the party store (I guess the 60’s were undergoing one of their periodic revivals in the mid 90’s), and I decided to make the cake myself. I painstakingly swirled food coloring onto fluffy white frosting to achieve a tie-dye pattern–it took forever, but looked great. The phone rang, and I took the two steps to the phone, picked it up, and turned back to see a third of the cake gone and our Chocolate Lab’s whiskers coated with fluffy frosting. She’d obviously been keeping watch and biding her time during the whole process and had leapt at her first opportunity. My first insane thought was that I could somehow fix the cake with more frosting, but I figured the presence of dog slobber made that an imprudent option, so the whole cake went into the trash. And yes, I made another. This dog also ate Barbie limbs and currency and once tore to pieces two half barrels of annuals I had finished planting an hour earlier. We loved her and miss her.
When I was a teenager we had a lab mix that we got at the grocery store when someone was out front giving away puppies—my brother and I had walked to the store while mom and dad were at work and brought a puppy home—mom and dad were maybe less than thrilled. Anyway, he was an unneutered male and sometimes liked to roam the neighborhood. He would escape the yard by jumping or climbing over the fence. Once in the middle of the night, we heard this terrible yowling. Everyone, neighbor included, ran outside to find the source. It turned out to be our dog. He had decided to escape and tried to go over the fence but got the pad of his foot caught in the chicken wire on the way over. He was lying outside the fence on the ground with that foot and his back end hung up in the air, screaming as if he was dying. We found wire clippers and cut him loose. His dignity, if that dog had ever had dignity, was damaged, but he was uninjured, amazingly. He had learned his lesson and never tried to go over the fence again.
Thanks, everybody…this has been a hoot…so many ways our animals keep us laughing. Me, I have an angelic (for now) purring kitten at my side, the terrier is using her indoor voice, and I’m hoping for an unbroken night’s sleep.
Back in the Stone Age, as we were gearing up to sell our first house, we were sitting on the deck with our realtor deciding on pricing. Mr. said,“I think we should go with $235k”. As soon as he said it, our generally well-mannered, but young and energetic GSD emerged from the side yard, dragging the Japanese maple that we had planted there a few month prior. While we were talking, he dug up and chewed up! The realtor looked at the dog and laughed, “Uh-oh, I think your house needs to be priced at $234,800!” 
Not mine but a friends dog:
He was still single, living in a rental house with chocolate lab littermates, a male and female. Kiowa, the girl was a good dog, well mannered and reserved. Her brother Apache was neither. As mothers used to say about their problem son, he had the devil in him.
He’d baked a batch of blueberry muffins and set them on the cook top while he went to the back for something or the other. Came back and found Apache up on the counter hunched over the cook top, snatching muffins out by their tops. He said they must have been kind of hot, considering how he was bouncing them around between his teeth before he swallowed.
That and the time he faced the dog down over a roast. My friend said he could see the dog calculating as to whether or not he could get get it done before the owner could get his portly self across the kitchen to stop him. Odds must have looked good to him, since he went for it.
Last: This one I actually witnessed, standing in their living room (he was married at this point) and looking out on their pool deck. Dog hopped up on top of the gate of the pool fence which wasn’t latched. It swung from his weight and he rode it right into a 20 gallon clay pot. A very nice hibiscus died.
What made it really memorable was that his wife was in middle of a rant about what an evil dog he was, chewing the seats off the children’s swing-set, etc.
A few years ago we moved, and brought our 14’ diameter trampoline to a friend’s house for them to have. It was a bit muddy that day and his dog and my dog were walking over the big rubber part while we set up the legs and when his boys got home from school, they thought the dogs had been hopping on the trampoline!
Flash forward 3 months or so. This friend’s dog was very, very smart. She could open latched rubbermaid containers. She figured out how to open the screen door to come back inside the house, etc.
They lived on a hill and there was a chain link fence at the bottom and a bit of woods on the other side where the deer would sometimes come. It wasn’t a steep hill, but still. The dog figured out that she could run down the hill, spring up onto the trampoline and launch herself up and over the fence! Right at the deer! I don’t think I could live with a dog that smart.
When my son was in HS, he wanted a dog. His dad (we were no longer married at that time) found a black lab mix “free to a good home.” She was a big puppy, energetic but sweet, and stayed in our backyard where she would lie on the porch and chew the siding on my house. One cold night, S decided to let her sleep in his bedroom. He failed to closed the door all the way, dog got out, and I heard noises coming from the living room in the middle of the night. Dog had already chewed up my brand new heated throw blanket as well as other things from the coffee table. And he totally destroyed the TV remote, devouring the two AA batteries. We never saw them again. 
We had an English Setter that loved chocolate. We knew chocolate was bad for dogs so we would hide it from him. One year around Christmas my wife bought several bags of Hershey kisses and hid them in our extra bedroom. Somehow while we were gone he got into the room and ate 2 bags and part of a third. We called the vet who told us to watch him but given his size and the fact that it was milk chocolate and also mixed with almonds plus he ate the wrappers he should be fine. He was.
It snowed that day and when you looked out our second story window that week all you saw where multi-colored piles. he decorated the yard in festive green, red, silver and gold piles of poop.
@greenwitch , was your friend’s dog a border collie, by any chance? Smartest dogs I have ever seen! I would get one in a heartbeat if I had a very big yard, a very high fence and a great deal more energy!
Our 20lb dog sleeps in the bed with us at night, and also loves sleeping in either my or W’s spot during the day. In the morning she’ll jump down and start whining which is the cue to let her out to do her business. But sometimes when we get up to let her out, she’ll immediately jump back into the bed and curl up in my spot or W’s spot with a satisfied “gotcha sucka!” look on her face, before falling back asleep for another hour or two. Meanwhile W and I stumble to wash up muttering, “damn dog”.
@inthegarden - she didn’t look like a border collie but she was a rescue dog so that could be part of her mix.
Awww @greenwitch, we recently saw a zany show of rescue dogs trained to do amazing feats (a cut of the profits went to our local shelter :))). Most of them were mixes with a lot of of border collie, cattle dog and Jack Russell DNA, and one former racing greyhound who sailed like a horse over a 62" fence. It was something to see (for the pet-obsessed among us.) Sounds like your friend’s dog could have been a star had she chosen a different career
Cat #(ashamed to say) was found walking down the creek bottom one night, starved near death, while the dogs and I were locking up gates. Only time I’ve ever heard her meow and she only did it while I was whistling.
Smallest of our cats and missing a toe but… she set down rigid ground rules for the rest of the inside ones, once she showed up. Have a cat spat with the very biggest? Stare him down till he’s trying to disengage and then slap the snot out of him. Then, turn and walk away without a look back. Your folks making tuna fish sandwiches for lunch? Expecting a little bite of the tuna? Feeling crowded by the rest of the cats? Yowl and start swinging paws.
We think it was a firm amendment on her part to never be hungry again, because once she plumped up, she chilled.
When one of our yellow labs was about 2 years old, she decided she really wanted that new loaf of french bread. She jumped up onto the kitchen island( husband witnessed this feat) and stole an entire loaf of french bread with paper wrapper still on . She then made her escape out the doggie door and had a picnic in the back yard !Husband thought it was funny and took pictures”. The Doggie Picnic” was featured on our Christmas Postcard that same year.
Once our 100 lb. Gordon Setter tried to take the apple turnover out of H’s hand while H was holding it to one side while turning the newspaper pages. H pried the dog’s jars open to get it back, and then proceeded to eat it himself.
^^^^^It’s pretty hard to gross me out, but…
This is my ex-H now. :))
@svcamom Our Christmas card one year featured two photos. One was of the dog next to our daughter’s chocolate advent calendar. She had carefully torn out the cardboard door for each day and eaten all the chocolates. It was Dec. 1. The other photo was of the cat in her favorite Dec. location: on top of the cabinet with the nativity scene looming large in the back in what I think of as the angel position glaring down at the baby Jesus.
This thread is hilarious!
We have 3 cats.
CAT #1:
Is a love muffin mama kitty. Treats the kids like her own kittens. Grooms them, loves on them. Great cat. Except in the middle of the night at 3:00 am when I wake up out of a dead sleep to the sound of mama kitty meowing this sound that I swear sounds like that cat equivalent of “OMG! WHERE DID MY EVERYBODY GO?! I CAN’T FIND THE KIDS! WHERE IS EVERYONE?!” When she does this, I call out her name. She comes running and plops down on the bed right above my head, purring & making satisfied little cat noises that are Cat Talk for “OMG, I’m so relieved to have found you! It was so scary! I’m glad you’re still here!” Makes me laugh every single time.
CAT #2:
Discovered by accident that she enjoys licking empty ice cream bowls. We don’t give any of the cats people food, but a few times, a cereal bowl or ice cream bowl gets left on the kitchen table and she will jump up on the table when you’re not looking and lick out of it. Oh…and she will drink my kids’ chocolate milk when you’re not paying attention (i.e., you leave it unattended on the table). Little brat!
CAT #3:
Our newest addition. Still a kitten. About 5 months old now. He likes to Sing The Song Of His People starting about 4:30 am. Starts making this humming sound as he runs/walks through the house looking for a human to wake up & feed him. You see, he thinks he’s starving if he can see the bottom of the food bowl. All you have to do it shake it so you can’t see the bottom of the bowl anymore.
When I use the toilet, Cat #3 comes running. Insists on being present for the potty party that he thinks is about to take place. Enjoys unrolling toilet paper off the roll, so to distract him, I rip off some and fling it and he goes and attacks it like it’s a bird or something. But then when you flush the toilet, you quickly have to put the lid down. Otherwise, Cat #3 will lean his front legs over the top of the toilet seat and as the bowl is filling up with water, he sticks his paw in and plays with the toilet water. Cat #2 then hears the toilet flushing and she has run over to find out what the fun is all about. Cat #2 likes to drink out of the toilet. We’ve all gotten into the habit now of putting the lid back down every time.
Cat #3 will often run so fast from 1 room to another that he skids on the tile floor in the kitchen. It’s hilarious to watch.
Other hilarious highlights of Kitty #3:
- saw him licking the wall yesterday. Idiot.
- likes to steal your cereal. He especially loves Raisin Bran flakes, Rice Krispies, and Cheerios. Has no shame and will steal it when you’re right there. He’s fast. Grab and Go. Happens before you’ve even realized what’s happened.
- will play catch with his favorite toy mouse. You throw the mouse. He catches it, brings it back, you throw it again.
- stores the toy mice in the food bowl.
- will go from sleeping like a wonderful purring soft warm lump of kitty goodness to Demon Cat attacking your feet in the middle of the night with no warning. Hence, I sometimes call him Butthole.