Interesting things you have seen animals do.

[Old Rabbit]

I thought it might be interesting to relate things you have seen
animals do, or heard of. (keep it clean please.) 

You can post a youtube link if you saw it there..

This encludes all living creatures other than humans. We already know how
strange we are. 

Funny, strange, unexpected, and interesting things you have seen or heard about.

Here is an example.

My dad told me he happened to be watching a housecat playing with  a mouse. The
cat would wait till the mouse moved then it would put is paw on the mouses tail to
catch it. Just happened there was a knothole in the floor nearby... Yes the mouse
darted down that knothole leaving the cat bewildered, at the loss of it's prey.

I wonder if the cat learned that he shouldn't play with his food, but I doubt it.

[cause the rat]

Years ago I had a dog that would join in conversations. Patches would sit with everyone. Turn his head and watch whoever was talking. Then when we all would laugh or cut up he'd make grunts and noises. Start when we did it and stop when the reaction was over.

Dotty had a lot of toys. When i would vacuum the floors I'd have to pick them all up. I'd put them in one big pile. After i was done she would put her toys back. She had places for each toy she liked.

[Loc]

My beardie has a basic concept of numbers and amounts. When putting worms in her dish, she will sit and stare at me impatiently until there are what she deems to be an acceptable number before eating - six or seven. She won't eat until I hit or exceed that amount.

[Takanuva]

I love that thing that foxes do when they dive headfirst into snow

[JunoBear]

I've seen canine-like animals make face on glass. A fox put him tongue up against the glass and pressed his nose up and it was hilarious. I know I've done it

[Firelight]

My dog butt scoots and barks at her reflection.
Our cat flops.

[Onion]

Camels playing with camel grass; they like top pick up a bushel and swing it about kind of like a dog does. Uou never expect to see them so full of life; being that media always depicts them as "Slow and Fowl" tempered animals. However, this couldn't be further from the truth. 

[Old Rabbit]

 Several years ago I was visiting a friend who had a farm. Not living on a
farm myself I wasn't used to watching cows. They are rather intelligent
animals. At least more so than I would have thought. My friend gave a
cow a bucket of grain. She ate it all the way down till it was about empty.
Then she tipped the bucket to one side to apparently make it easier to
get the last out.

Now you know that isn't instinct. She had to learn how to do that.

We tend to judge animals by things we do. They have little interest
in doing most things we do. But for what interests them they do
very well indeed.

[Onion]

You know, I concur. 

[CatDetective]

My mom has a story about my late father, from when she was pregnant, about being a little afraid of a wild possum out in the yard-- normally she wouldn't have been, but, you know, being pregnant she was just warier of everything, and a possum out and about in the daytime isn't exactly normal behavior for them.

My dad went outside, sat down in a chair, and the possum didn't run off into the trees at having a human there. So he recited the whole of Mark Twain's 'Jim Baker's Bluejay Yarn' and the possum settled down near-ish to him while he spoke, and scuttled off when the story was over.

It's the sort of story I'd have considered unbelievable if it was told to me by/about anyone else, but animals always really liked my dad, including the wild ones, or those whose owners/rescuers said didn't like/trust humans, or men in particular. He used to scare my grandmother by getting up close to things that should have been dangerous. Fish in aquariums would follow him as he walked past from one end to the other, it was... weird to see, but really neat.


He used to have a cat that was allowed to come and get leftovers off the table, if all the humans had finished eating, but you had to clear the silverware and leave just the plates, because if he hopped up on the table and the fork was on the plate, he would try to use it and just be frustrated.


Of the two cats we've got now, one of them likes watching TV. He has preferences-- he likes credit sequences and menus, anything where words move along the screen. And he likes when it's mostly blue (as out of all the colors, it's the one that he has the best sense of). He likes certain types of action scenes all right, and seems to prefer animation to most live action-- the exception being when 'Too Cute: Kittens' is on Animal Planet. 'Too Cute: Kittens' is his favorite show. If 'Too Cute: Puppies' comes on, he will often turn his back on it in disappointment when he figures out that it's going to be dogs and not babies. He doesn't really care about other animal shows much, even if kittens are present. He also seems to use the TV to time when it's going to be his dinnertime.

[charcoal]

I heard my best friend's dog sing along to Phil Collins in the air tonight

[Shivu]

Well my dog only has three legs (he's missing the front left leg) and I've seen him do this weird thing where he sits on his haunches and scratches his face with his one front paw then puts that paw down and sits like a meerkat XD

I also remember my cat, Toby, was in the middle of the road once and there was a car coming so I started to call him but he just ignored me, but then my other cat, Diego, meows to him and- I swear to God- waves his paw and only then does Toby move. And I was like, "I literally just saw a cat wave another cat off the road wat WAT"

[Rocket T. Coyote]

There were three young rabbits playing tag in my backyard last night as I watched and laughed.

I recently left out a shallow wide-mouth jar which had some mayonaisse left inside. I set it out in front of my trailcam. The vixen came in and picked up the jar. She left it sparkling.

Two winters ago, I saw a young coyote try to catch a squirrel by sneaking in while crouching. She failed, but ran back out into the farm field to drop to her belly in the snow as she faced several bird feeders.

[Lorne]

You know how Disney and other cartoon movies will often have animals playing with butterflies amidst sunbeams to try and ramp up the cute and innocent factor? Well one time while horseback riding I came up into this little glade and lo and behold there was a pair of coyote pups with the mother, and one was chasing and leaping after a butterfly amidst slanting sun beams. XD

[Rocket T. Coyote]

A doe would walk by me as I sat quietly in a deadfall. She would notice my eyes, stare into them, then start dancing around. This has happened twice to me over the years.

[Old Rabbit]

After watching animals over the years. I feel we have much more in common than
most people realize. Not only biology, but thought as well.

A pet generally knows when a member of it's family is gone, or when they
usually return. They know what belongs to them or where their home is.

I read several years ago when teaching sign language to a Gorilla. It would respond in
simple sentences. It would ask questions, but seemed to have problems with abstract
situations.  It would appear they have limited understandings of life and the world
about them. Not just a creature of habit, but a thinkking being.

[Beag L. Howler]

Every dog I've ever adopted has accidentally ran into the glass door at my house. I wonder if they can tell the difference between a glass door and an empty door frame.

The dog I have know barks at doorbells on TV.

Otherwise uh... I don't know many funny animal things?

[Rocket T. Coyote]

The young rabbits in the backyard seem to be challenging the vixen for the marshmallows and bits of cereal set out each night. She sends the bunnies packing.

A stale, rock-hard chocolate lunchbox treat was presented, and accepted by the she-fox. She later returned to the shepherd's hook it hung from and stood on her hind legs in search for another. Fox logic seems to suggest that yummy treats are supposed to grow back in an hour or so.

[Old Rabbit]

The young rabbits in the backyard seem to be challenging the vixen for the marshmallows and bits of cereal set out each night. She sends the bunnies packing.

A stale, rock-hard chocolate lunchbox treat was presented, and accepted by the she-fox. She later returned to the shepherd's hook it hung from and stood on her hind legs in search for another. Fox logic seems to suggest that yummy treats are supposed to grow back in an hour or so.

I imagine the rabbits didn't argue with the fox.    You shouldn't give RL critters chocolate. They like
it because of the sugar thats in it, but it can be deadly to them.

[Rocket T. Coyote]

After spending a half-hour catching and releasing nothing but creek chubs, I return to my car and store my fishing tackle. Upon turning around, I am staring into the eyes of a young coyote. Perhaps hoping to mooch some of the fish it saw me catching--or to get a glimpse of the "magic stick" I was using.

It turns out that coyote know how to catch fish:

Fishing Coyote

[JackalJames]

I can't remember his name, but an African grey parrot was the first animal to ask an existential question which is pretty incredible. He asked his handlers if he was grey, and they told him he was. Ravens are also some odd creatures, they have a sense of family and have been seen doing things for no reason other than to amuse themselves. Honestly birds are incredible

[Rocket T. Coyote]

I imagine the rabbits didn't argue with the fox.    You shouldn't give RL critters chocolate. They like
it because of the sugar thats in it, but it can be deadly to them.

Theobromine issues, you're thinking. Once, my sistert's Peke-a-poo got into my room, found a Cadbury bar I had stashed, and licked it all over. The dog survived.
I expected the fox to reject the stale chocolate cake, yet she took it and is still giving the rabbits the business each night. Chocolate is too good to share with critters, so the experiment is not going to be repeated anytime soon.
 
Lucky for the bunnies, the nearby tiger lilies are the next best thing to a briar patch.

[Old Rabbit]

I think some birds are exceptionally intelligent, though they do fly into glass
windows sometimes even with their excellant vision.

I have watched shows about parrots where they pick up different items when asked to
do so. Keys, shells, wood, ect. They can name them in english as well.

Of course some birds have the ability to mimic sounds, even complex ones. I imagine
dogs, cats, and other animals of similar intelligence could do the same if they could
speak sounds like the birds.

I saw a dog retrieve the keys for his masters truck when asked to do so.

Animals of the same species like humans have differing mental abilities. So just because
one animal seems stupid doesn't mean all animals are.

Glass windows are unnatural things, so it's ont suprising that animals run into them.
I have seen birds fly into them, and they can see much better than a dog can.

Sometimes I wonder if they are flying toward the reflection instead. Not realizing it for
what it is.

Though animals can eat chocolate without dieing it's still dangerous for them to do so.
Kind of like a human consuming huge amounts of caffine.

[Rocket T. Coyote]

I had a tomcat who clearly hated coyotes. The first thing he did when brought into the house was to attack a coyote pelt draped over my easy chair. I once placed a coyote roll-off pelt over my arm like a sock puppet and the cat's attitude changed and he attacked the pelt. going for the throat. Later, he would find one of the pelts and drag it into the living room with much effort. Then he would "dance" on the pelt.

[Old Rabbit]

We adopted a cat who had grown up with a dog. I swear the cat acted like a dog. It
wanted to please just as dogs do.. Once it killed a rat, then carried it in to show it to us.
As if to ask for our approval.. Sadly one day the cat dragged a heavy  chunk of steel off
a shelf, where it fell on the cat breaking it's neck. Being the habit of cats to climb he
likely grabbed the metal when jumping for the shelf. 

Sometimes I think it would be nice if humanity knew more about animals and how they
think, and feel. Religion teaches that animals were created for for human needs. I think it's
more about human need instead. You can be sure some care little for the feelings of
animals. We should be concerned about those who torment animals, because the same
people will often do the same to their fellow humans.