I made the mistake of letting my cat drink from a slow stream of running water in my bathroom sink ONE TIME and ever since then the little wench will not allow me to take a shit in peace, within seconds of me closing the bathroom door she starts scratching demanding me to turn the faucet on for her.

I’d buy her a fountain if I didn’t know that she would still prefer the sink, in classic asshole cat form.

Unusual overall? A lot, since she’s a chicken, and they’re batshit crazy.

But unusual for a chicken would have to be her habit of cuddling. She doesn’t do it often, but when she wants to cuddle she cuddles the hell out of you she pecks my arm until I wrap it around her, then borrows her beak into the crook of my elbow then starts her little content chuckle/purr.

After that, there are only two rules: no touch, only cuddle. And no moving, only cuddle.

Anything else is met with an indignant rage that can’t even be matched by a church lady at a strip club getting teabagged. There will be squawking, and you will obey, or suffer the Wrath of Marans (which rhymes with Khan, and the s is silent because it’s french).

The Wrath of Marans is mostly just more squawking, followed by angry stomping. But it’s terrifying if you squint really hard. Okay, if you squint real hard and pretend you’ve been shrunk to the size of a particularly small mouse.

The Wrath of Marans can also be doled out for other crimes such as; not surrendering the biscuit, not surrendering the peanuts, not surrendering the completely inedible piece of aluminum foil in your hand, or the absolute worst crime of all; Picking The Chicken Goddess Up to Prevent Her Pecking Things That Will Hurt Her. Which can be elevated to all caps as needed. Which is just the same thing with extra squawking and some growls.

You pull the string, the pointer spins and lands on: The Chicken says BAAAAAWWWWWWK! I WILL EAT YOU, PITIFUL HUMAN!

Both of my cats will never, I mean never, sit on my lap.

One likes to jump from side to side over me when I’m sleeping. She also lets me lay my head on her like a pillow.

One will play fetch like a dog. She will only eat her treats if I throw them.

They both know what push means when I tell them to open the door.

They both love drawers.

My cat is obsessed with grooming beards. As in…will not stop until you force him off. My partner plays a little game where they fight for kisses. The cat will try to get close and groom his beard and my partner will take advantage of the closeness to smother him in kisses. The cat is not a huge fan of the kisses so they do this thing where they both waver in front of each other like cobras, both trying to find an in to kiss/lick. Sometimes when my partner moves in for a kiss, the cat will lean backwards and turn his face to the side, denying the kiss. Then as soon as my partner backs off, the cat quickly moves forward to lick his beard again. It’s hysterical and I never tire of watching the game.

My cat used to sleep on my head / hair.

I have a cat that plays fetch.

It sounds cute, and it is - until he’s bringing you q-tips he dug out of the trash to play with.

My dog refuses to poop in our yard. Has no issues in any other, just not at home.

Once, he had a diarhea and wanted outside. I was a couple of times in the span of couple of hours so I thought fuck it, I will use it - I let him out and thought when he can’t hold anymore, he will let it out and I will try to make it a training excercise for him to see it’s ok. Nope! Had to take him in the end because he was shaking in front of the fence gate, tail between legs, looking at me desperately.

So I had to accept he would rather die than to let poop out in his yard.

My cat loves to sleep in.

It’s common for people to semi-jokingly complain about their cats waking them for food every day. Mine doesn’t do that.

If it’s the weekend, and I sleep without an alarm, I’ll rouse to my cat having joined me in bed, ready for a couple hours of snoozing as the sun comes up.

He’s usually down to keep chilling in bed for hours and hours past when I usually feed him.

When my little terrier/chihuahua mix was a puppy she would give me a “hug” first thing In the morning. I’d sit up in bed and say “time to go to work” and she would put her front paws around my neck and press her face against mine. She eventually would do it on command. Then she had surgery to correct a luxating patella (knee cap pops out of place) and never did it again.

She also used to drag herself across the carpet with her front legs, back legs dragging behind her. We would call it “swimming”.

Being part terrier she is very smart but also stubborn. When our senior dog passed, I taught her lots of tricks. One trick was to ring a bell when she wanted to go outside. I rigged up a donut shapped toy she could paw that was attached to a spring with a bell on it. She refused to ring it. I know she knew what to do, she just refused. When she wanted a treat she would paw the cabinet just like I taught her to paw the bell/toy. Eventually I gave up. Fast forward to a year later. We get another puppy and as soon as I try to teach new dog how to ring the bell she runs over and slams it. From that point on she slams the bell ten times a day.

My cat is obsessed with my socks. If a load of clean laundry has been left too long before it gets folded and put away, my socks will be scattered throughout the house.

Our family dog learned to pee from a boy dog. She would squat and raise one leg.

When fighting her brother, Cerys got him in a headlock with her back legs then reared up and went to fucking town with her forepaws on his head like it was bongos.

Our dog does a front leg “handstand” to pee. I assume she peed on her hind legs once and decided keeping feet of the ground is a better plan.

My cat has learned to say “Hello?” when he’s looking for me. It’s like “mherrrro?” It’s kind of amazing.

Sir Kitty was sensitive to the tone of my voice. If I was arguing with my husband, and especially if I was crying, he would come over, get on my lap if he can, and yell at both of us. (RIP July 2020, age 16) Here he is looking like he’s comatose.

Pez used to use her front paws to hold her tail up so she could groom it. I know it’s not super unusual, but she was the only one of our three who did that. (RIP November 2019, age 17+?) Here she is in the middle of a sneeze.

Murphy likes stinky socks and shoes. (Still kicking at 20+)