Nosy animals - pets? wild ones? Do tell!

awatkins

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Rio, my Blue-crowned conure, has got to be one of the nosiest little birds in the world. Something he did the other day cracked me up.

I was trying to look out a window but the mini-blind wasn't cooperating. Prying a couple of slats apart, I leaned forward to peer through. Rio, who was sitting on my shoulder, leaned forward, too, pushed his head against my face, shoved me out of the way, and pressed his eye to the opening so he could look out first! I don't know what he thought he was looking for, but by golly, he won.

And now for my most recent nosy wild animal encounter: We heard a noise on the front porch last night while we were watching the news. My husband carefully peeked outside and found a possum, standing in one of the porch chairs, trying to look in the window. A peeping possum! :D

Got any nosy animal tales? Curious cats, dogs, horses, guinea pigs, anything? Please share. :)
 
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Fern

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We have horses and decided to sell one of the mares some time back. She was in the pasture and a guy came to look so I walked out with him to point her out. As we stood talking; my head was turned slightly to the left. I took a step back for some reason, and came cheek to cheek with a nosy gelding that had hung his head over my shoulder so he could be "in the know". Scared the bejesus out of me. I hadn't a clue he was standing near me.
 

TheIT

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My cats always have to know what I'm doing, and they don't give a rip if they interfere with me doing it. Sparky loves watching running water, so I always have the exciting view of the back of his head with the ears perked up in between me and the sink as I wash my hands. Milli loves chewing on plastic bags, so every time I open up the refrigerator I have to push him out of the way to close the door because he sneaks in to nibble on the bread bag. Whenever I'm trying to sculpt Sparky insists on sitting in my lap and then tries chewing on the end of whatever tool I'm using. He'll also go after my pen tip as I'm writing.
 

Rane

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Every day when I get home from work, my cabinet drawers are all open. My cat, Steve, is the nosiest animal there ever was. No matter what the drawer is, he manages to get it open. And he's taught my little one how to be as bad as he is. I have to get those safety locks for the cabinets now.

I can't leave anything out on my counter or the next day it will be gone. I bought these really good english muffins and was dying to have one the next day. Well, I left them on my counter overnight, and when I woke up, the whole bag was on the floor and there were bites taken out of each one.

They've also eaten peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, rice cakes, and bagels.

When they're hungry, they've learned where the cabinet with their food is, so they go over there and bang it open and closed until I get up and give them food.

So nosy and annoying at times, but I love them! :)
 

A. Hamilton

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Above the desk where I write is a window, facing some type of elm tree that bears little berries. Here I can observe many species of birds, most after the berries, and some who are just curious. Yesterday there was one from a variety I had not seen yet, a little red head with a brown and tan speckled body. He was fascinating to me, seemed more curious than most and appeared to take notice of me as well. He hopped from twig to twig, tilting his head from oone eye to the other to get a clear view, hopping closer with each look. Suddenly he flew straight forward, as if to jump on my desk, and smacked right into the window! He dropped a little, stunned, but did manage to fly away.
I was so vain, thinking it was me that sparked this little guy's curiosity, until my husband pointed out that, given the time of day and the way the light was reflecting on the glasss, he probably saw his own pretty reflection in the window.
 

TheIT

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Reminds me of the cat we had when I was growing up. Rex had a sweet tooth, so we had to store leftover coffeecake or muffins in the microwave otherwise the plastic wrap would have teeth marks in it the next morning.

Rex learned how to open the vanity door under the sink in the bathroom. He liked to sleep inside on the extra towels. One day my dad reached in to get a towel and encountered something warm and furry. Nearly gave him a heart attack (my dad, not the cat).

The best food stealing incident was when my brother had a full leg cast. He was propped up on the sofa with a lap tray during dinner. One night we had steak. Rex jumped on the sofa, walked up my brother's cast, sniffed his plate, and tried stealing his steak. Rex was no dummy; he knew my brother couldn't run after him. We managed to catch him before he got too far.
 

dlcharles

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Several years ago I had a rather lengthy recuperation from an industrial accident and my bedroom was outfitted with hospital equipment, including one of those electric lift chairs. I hated that chair! My female Collie, however, developed a very strong attraction to sleeping in it. She would stalk regally into my bedroom, holding her favorite toy in her jaws, and take up residence in that chair. The amazing part was how she learned to hit the lift button when she decided to get down. I didn't teach her that trick. She would paw the lift button, widen her mouth in a 'grin', and ride that chair to its raised maximum which dumped her onto the floor. Dumb dog never did learn how to lower the chair, though - or she was smarter than me and knew someone would eventually do it for her. I think it broke her heart when I healed up and the lift chair was taken away. Poor dog would come into my room, stand just inside the door, and gaze with longing eyes at the spot where the chair used to sit, often adding a plantive whine to her looks.
 
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BlueBadger

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Dante, our black cat, got a little too curious about my pet rats, which is why he's missing the tip of his right ear.

We took him to get his photo taken with a pet photographer last Christmas. Most cats would freak out at the camera, the strangeness of the atmosphere, the photographer dancing like a fool to get his attention, but Dante was content to taste the fake pine that was part of the backdrop.

Other than that, his exploration is focused mainly on new places to sleep, or so I learned yesterday when I opened up the top flap of a suitcase stored in the closet, and the suitcase said, "Mrrrt?"
 

rich

I just took in a four-year-old Beagle, Max, whose owner was going to leave at a shelter. That leaves me with three dogs and two cats. One's my daughters, a cockapoo, who leaves him with us when she goes to work. The other one looks like a golden/poodle all 70 pounds of her.

We've had the beagle for two weeks and I can't get over him howling instead of barking.
 

GHF65

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Well, I'll put horses nose-to-nose with any other animal in this arena! :D I have six, and each one is nosier than the next.

The crinkle of paper of any kind brings at least four of them running. The other two are always afraid of getting beat up by the youngsters, so they hang back and just stare. The call of the wild carrot bag is tough to resist.

The big Paint gelding stops whatever he's doing whenever a vehicle pulls in the driveway and will stand watching until he's satisfied that nothing exciting is happening. That can literally be an hour or more. He hangs his head over the fence near wherever I am, grabs my tools if I'm working close to the fence (he's the one who has his own toolbox now), and he and his Morgan buddy ran off with my cans of creosote when I was patching the tree they'd been chewing on. They took the cans out of the bag, tasted the creosote, decided it was boring and moved on to bigger things . . .the old tractor left parked in the pasture for ten minutes while I retrieved the creosote was minus its seat and a couple of hydraulic hoses when I returned.

The old Quarter Horse waits for me to go into the tackroom and will slam open the door right out of my hand and walk in if I don't see him sneaking up on me. The Morgan had to be extracted from that room many times before the kids learned to keep the door closed tight when their backs were turned. I don't know what he thought was in there. He was just standing in the middle of the room each time we retrieved him.

Then there are the birds. The cockatoo has to check whatever we're eating. At very least, he has to be allowed to look at it and decide for himself if it's worth tasting. Thwarted, he throws the mother of all fits, so it's easier just to show it to him. Yes, we're well-trained owners. He also has a favorite portrait--my daughter at the age of 18 months--that he likes to touch with his beak. He sits on my arm and jumps up and down until I lift him so he can see her eye-to-eye. This portrait is huge, so he can't see her face unless I give him a boost. And he thinks the world of books with pictures! If I don't page through slowly enough for him, he sits on the book or magazine until I give up.

The button quail does his little quail noise the whole while, but he won't eat any people food other than lettuce and bananas. He still feels that he deserves to visit the food, so in the interest of peace, I always let him have a tidbit. He talks back to the microwave, so he's not real choosy about his sources of stimulation.

The chickens . . . ah, the chickens! EVERYTHING grabs their attention. None too bright, but very curious.

Oddly, my cats are pretty disinterested in most of what goes on around here. The Maine Coon scopes out the barn while I feed in the mornings, but otherwise he'd just as soon hang out on the ottoman or the big leather couch by the fire. The Tabby is too sophisticated for nonsense.

I've said it before, but I'll say it again: I don't know how people without animals get through their days! The comic relief is worth every minute of the work it takes to keep them all. :ROFL:
 

dlcharles

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If I may, I'll add another here. When we had our farm we raised everything from dairy cows to pot-bellied pigs - horses, goats, sheep, etc. We had a very old handmade cedar incubator in which we custom hatched eggs. We hatched everything from parrots, quails, ducks, chickens, guineas, turkeys, turkens, geese, to peacocks and pheasants. The incubator could hold six hundred chicken eggs on six shelves, which had to be turned by hand several times each day. By pulling on a lever at the end of a shelf the eggs were supposed to turn without a problem, but it never worked out that way and I would have to spend time turning each by hand. Anyway, I am a constant whistler, the harder I am thinking the more I whistle.

Of all the eggs we hatched I enjoyed watching guinea eggs hatch. It is almost 'popcorn like' in the way they immediately begin tumbling as they hatch. To make this short- we had just released a full six hundred guineas out onto the farm where they could free range and it was time to feed everything of an evening. I had been in the barn milking one of our dairy cows, a beautiful Golden Guernsey, when I heard a loud whirring noise sounding like a gale force wind. As the startled Guernsey sent the milk bucket flying with one mild kick I caught movement in my periphereal vision. Through the open barn doors came a thundering herd, a mixture of every bird on our farm (and there were a bunch), squawking, screaming, wings flapping. As the cow attempted to determine whether cows truly could fly I found myself lying upon my back a few feet away from the milk stanchion and innundated in assorted fowl.

My wife heard the noise way over in the emu pens, quickly running to help - and between us we figured out what had caused the uproar. All those times I had been turning the eggs and whistling I had been imprinting upon the hatchlings. Once released onto the farm itself to roam hither and yon at will they heard me whistling in the barn and immediately made a beeline for "MAMMA" (me). From that point on we had a lot of fun showing visitors what imprinting can accomplish. I made a special point from then on to whistle a particular tune for each type of hatch - and could 'whistle-up' geese separate from chickens or other fowl. Each had its own 'call'.
 
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jdkiggins

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Cats are naturally inquisitive and we all know how they love to play with their catch until it tires out. Yesterday my mom's cat, Tig, was creeping through the leaves. You know the slow, one paw at a time, head down, nose forward kinda creep when they spy something they want to attack. About three feet in front of him the leaves were moving. He crept a few more feet then pounced. Leaves scattered everywhere. Tig jumped about two feet in the air screeching and meowing, paws writhing violently at his face.

I haven't laughed this hard in a long time.

Tig squealed and shook his head back and forth, rolled around on the ground still pawing at his face.

...A mole latched onto his nose.

I wasn't sure whether to feel sorry for Tig because the mole had such a good hold, or feel sorry for the mole because he was being thrashed around so much.

It only lasted about a minute, but Tig didn't go for the kill. When the mole finally let go, it scooted in between some rocks and Tig continued to paw at his nose and sneeze.

I'm going to have to keep my camera attached to my neck. This would have been a great picture.
That was nosy, literally! :ROFL: Curiosity didn't kill the cat...Tig's fine, not a mark on him. ;) I think it surprised him more than anything, and smarted a bit, too.
 

GHF65

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What a great story, Joanne!

I thought I was going to have something really hilarious to post when I saw old Pinky, the elderly One-Eyed Wonder App, nosing the butt of our gimpy resident senior-citizen skunk, but apparently the two oldsters couldn't quite get it together to create any real chaos. The skunk sprayed, but missed Pinky by a mile.

But I did have a decent giggle moment yesterday when I took advantage of the nice weather to get some cleanup done around the barn and pasture. I hopped (okay, make that "climbed awkwardly") over the fence into the riding ring to do a poo walk-down, and was immediately joined by my old QH, Leo, who thinks I'm the best thing since sliced alfalfa. He followed me with his nose at my shoulder, intensely interested in every scoop I tossed over the fence. Not to be left out, the big Paint, Zip, had to come check out the game. By the time I got to topping the cedar trees growing along the fence, I had a parade of four as the mini, Duke, and the Paint mare, Pokey, joined the group. I didn't know I'd gathered such a crowd until I turned to climb down from my perch on the top of the fence and saw four faces intently gazing up at me. By the time I'd moved into the pasture to throw rocks onto the fencerow, all six horses were following along behind me jockeying for position just in case something exciting was going to happen. Everyone got a nose rub for attentiveness, and when I went back over the fence, they drifted back to the feeder. I guess that was enough excitement for one day. A horse's life is an endless state of wonder!
 

Fern

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We had a couple of kittens dropped off on us a while back. They're about half grown now. . .a yellow/white bob tailed male and regular calico female. They're forever stalking something around here, honing their skills, I guess.

We had a rain and a couple of birds were picking around for something to eat and doing a little splashing in a puddle. I happened to notice the cats, slinking across the yard in tiger mode. She (the better mouser) was about a foot ahead of him and they were creeping forward. . .crawl, stop, crawl, stop. . . ready to pounce the unsuspecting birds. I wondered how they were going to make that final leap and both get their prey. You've seen kids faces when one is trying to outdo the other; you know, gotta get there first. They both had the look, but she was bound and determined to make the first move and gave it away a little too quick. The birds flew and you could see the most disgusted look come over the male's face. I know cats can't talk, but the words "damn female", just seemed to hang in the air as he walked off to the barn in an obvious huff.
 

Valkyrie1

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a wild feline

I had a cat named Jezy who loved high elevations, such as the tops of our cabinets, closet shelves, and refrigerator. These places gave him the occasion to lie in wait for a victim in which to hone his hunting skills.

More than once, while rummaging through my closet for a scarf or a pair of shoes, a huge, gray fur ball would come hurtling in my direction from above.

The most I ever suffered was the shock of experiencing fourteen pounds of fatcat landing on me, but after each successful ambush, Jezy would tear away to parts unknown to escape my wrath.

High altitudes also gave him the opportunity to gaze imperiously down upon the unwashed masses beneath him. If we tried to ignore him, he would remind us of his presence with a gentle but firm tap on the head.

When he was bored with these antics, he would slowly melt off the surface he was lounging on, too lazy to rise and jump like a normal cat. Then he would tumble down to the floor, always landing feet first.

I miss that silly cat.