Much like the humans in our household, are all odd (me included), so to are our the animals that have resided with us.
We had a love bird, a single love bird, which hated being put with other love birds, (those whom have kept love birds will know, they are not supposed to be kept on their own, they do not like it.) Our’s thrived alone. Odd.
Loved taking chunks out of your fingers, would also nest in big hair. Chewed her way out of three cages and regularly used to escape around the house. In her final year or so, her feed was kept in a large roses tin, which she would perch on the side of it, filling up on sunflower seeds from within.
Such was her comfort for the tin, she would let you carry her around while perched on it.
Then we had two house cats (sisters) that were left from a litter penned up in a pet shop. We went back for one and took her sister also, the skinny runt of the litter, we couldn’t leave her alone there.
We then tore our home apart while extending it, considerable noise, walls taken out, beams cut and put in, huge disruption for months. Our house cats used to go into the one room in the house with a door, sleep on top of the wardrobe and then come out at the end of the day, completely undisturbed by any change.
The skinny one used to sleep in the fold of my arm until she’d warmed up, her sister lived until the ripe old age of 16 and was a lazy non climbing cat, who loved mushy peas.
We are now lucky enough to share our home with Cokes, a chinese lion/husky cross.
Most dogs love playing ball, not our Cokes. She loves running away, at any opportunity.
She manipulates us by staring at anything edible until we part with it, then and only then will she eat her own food. She loves stealing brews from pots, will “find” snacks on tables if told to, but won’t play ball, won’t walk after she’s had a dump and loves nothing more than biting the back of my legs (to bring her prey down I’m told), right before she gets excited and wants a dump.
Cokes grumbles and groans, if you sit on the floor, she sits on top of you, rolling over for her belly scratched.
She is not a normal, as you’d expect, dog.
Coke’s is also very wary of people. If Cokes gets freaked by you, she’s judging the kind of person you are, very intelligent, very astute.
Her favourite nosh is a full yorkshire pudding, which she likes to bury down the back of the settee cushions or outside under my rhubarb, which is not great when it’s covered in gravy.
Her pet hate is… arguments and shouting.
Do all animals (I hate the term “pets”) reflect the families they live with? Or are we just that lucky?
We are odd.