Okay, I counted only five OT posts, and decided to help remedy the dearth of them. Here’s my cat’s latest weirdness (and there are many):
I was opening a can of asparagus, and of course the can-and-opener ritual had her quick as a flash to my side, making “I’m curious” noises and demanding the right of first refusal. Per usual, I let her sniff the removed lid (NO, it DIDN"T have sharp edges. I use one of those openers that lift the lid off, not cut it. I happen to somewhat savvy, thank you. Now leave me alone, Cranberry. ), and she inspected it just to make sure. Then she started licking the juice from the lid! So I got a little dish, put a couple of spoonfuls of asparagus water -or whatever you call it- in the dish, gave it to her, and she finished it all up without delay, and then went to take another nap. She’ll probably want more next time.
My family has a cat that hates pork and beef, but loves chili cheese fries for some reason (we’ve only let her eat a little bit twice though, I rather doubt they’re any better for cats than they are for humans, after all…)
We used to have a cat that was passionately fond of honeydew melon.
He had no interest in watermelon, and would eat cantelope if offered, but the smell of a honeydew melon being cut open would fetch him from anywhere in the house. He’d then rub up against your legs, purring and meowing, until you gave him his share.
We had another cat that was mad about my grandmother’s chocolate sour cream cake. We wouldn’t let him have much (I know chocolate can be bad for cats - and he’d have eaten the whole thing if we’d have let him), but he would go crazy over the small pieces we’d give him.
Both these cats were Siamese, btw. And no, cat #2 was a seal point, not a chocolate point.
My cat, which I unfortunately cannot see on a regular basis anymore due to the whole college thing, used to wake me up at just about 9:30 on vacation days. She also would send me to bed around 11:30 pm, by attacking my foot, then running into my room, and meowing for me to follow.
We couldn’t find our cat the other morning, we knew she was inside though. After awhile my wife bid me to come look inside one of the bathroom sinks…this cat loves this sink and comes running for a drink anytime it hears the facet turn on. It was all curled up, asleep! She tears the TP off the spindle too and bats it all around. Funny thing..when she was a little tiny kitten, we found her in the bowl where the cats eat, all curled up alseep…same thing!
DCrom, I had a cat that went bonkers over melons, too! First time I noticed was when he got into the garbage somehow and nabbed a canteloupe rind. He was just a little kitten, and had it in his jaws with the points curving way up past his head, and was making growling noises as he paraded into the dining room. I nearly died laughing. Later on, he’d yell at me whenever I’d cut up melons. He always got the juice; really went for that stuff.
We have a bird that will not allow anything other than his cage to sit on the “cage table.” If anyone sits an object on the table (even some pretty heavy ones) he will push, pull, bite, and otherwise annoy the object until it saves itself by jumping off the edge of the table. This has happened to many a whistle.
I think all animals have their own personality quirks. We had a dog once who loved spaghetti…just lapped it right up. She knew the word “spaghetti” and she would come running whenever my Mom would cut up the spaghetti on her plate after dinner. She just knew that sound meant it was time for HER to get some spaghetti.
Our current dog…well, no real weird food issues (though she does love cookies!)…but she loves snow. Majorly loves it. We have feet of snow back home (maybe 4+ on the ground right now) and she’ll run up a hill of snow that’s been dumped by a snow plow (she now knows the command “up the hill”) and will dive into the fresh snow on the other side. The problem? Well, she only weighs 18 lbs and is about knee high. So she sinks. And gets stuck. And we have to get into the snow ourselves and pluck her out. Moments later, she’s back in the snow bank. It makes walking her in the winter quite interesting!
My old cat, Khani, used to love mashed potatoes. You couldn’t leave them unattended on the table or counter, or she’d be at them. Our newer cat, Jonah, won’t have anything to do with people food of any sort…but he is convinced that, if he doesn’t get his food by 4:00 each afternoon, he will waste away and die.
My dog, Cedar, loves raw broccoli (he used to sit next to me and drool while I was cutting up veggies for stir fry). He also goes crazy for vegetarian sausages (the Morningstar Farms ones), which is funny, 'cause I don’t remember him being this crazy for “real” sausages back in the day.
And no, neither of my pets is fed a vegetarian diet. Only the humans in the family are herbivores
We used to have a outdoor cat that was the colour of grey stone, so could hide very well. If he liked you, he would hide, then when you came close unsuspecting, he would rush out of the bushes, leap in to the air as high as he could, and twisting would kick your leg with both of his hind legs. Being only a small cat, this would send him shooting back in to the bushes, where he would wait for the next person. If he didn’t like you, he would do the same thing, only his leap would end with him grabbing your leg and digging in with his claws so he could hold on, and would simply begin to chew. He his favourite target for this seemed to be the neighbour girl, as she was fond of skirts.
The dog I grew up with loved beer. If you opened any kind of canned beverage (known as Coke generically where I’m from, but equivalent to soda water – soda – pop) he’d run up to see if it was beer. If my dad opened a beer, Guffey would beg until he poured some in a dish for him. The bubbles tickled his nose, so he’d whimper, but drink it up and lick the bowl. Guffey also knew the sound of broccoli in a plastic bag, and would demand my mother feed him broccoli. Not cooked; only fresh. He would also eat romaine lettuce but refused iceberg lettuce.
Oh, about asparagus and pee. Asparagus makes everyone’s pee smell that weird way; there’s actually a gene (that’s been mapped) that codes for the ability to detect that smell. Some people can’t detect it, but their pee still has the smell. Yes, I imagine NIH or some such PAID for the research that looked into the matter. I can’t remember if it’s related, but there’s a compound in asparagus called inulin that’s been used in a lot of kidney research (to determine glomerular filtration rate). Maybe the researchers noted the smell, or some did, and then they looked for the gene on the side.
The starling I had (see aforementioned “Thief” thread) loved fancy cheese like gouda or gruyere, but would turn up his beak at lowly colby or american cheese. He also would get in a frenzy if there was water running anywhere in the house and loved to stand under the faucet with the water pouring down on top of his head. Strange bird.
Spitting, I’m not even going to mention the oddity of having a free flying startling in the house…
But my cat likes yogurt. He wakes me up wanting yogurt, likes to lick the top and then will wait not-so-patiently to lick the inside rim of the container. He likes blueberry and cherry the best, peach is ok, and will put his nose up at vanilla bean, sometimes strawberry and most other flavors. He also only likes the good stuff. The new yogurt in a tube that is made for kids gets snubbed as does no-name-brand.
Our dog used to be like that with rice. For a while after he had parvo he could only eat rice and broth, but not just any rice would do for our pampered pooch…oh no! He had to have basmati! Put plain ol’ California long-grain in his dish and he’d turn up his aristocratic nose and complain that we were trying to poison him!
Nano, my lovely cat Sasha was nuts for bok choy – would leap into the middle of the take-out Chinese containers to get at it, right in the middle of dinner, and always scooped it up with a paw and brought it to her mouth, rather than just digging in face-first – and for flour tortillas. Had a thing for ethnic foods, I guess.
All of our current housemates are avian, and are full of odd quirks and behaviors. Miles (a Senegal parrot) says “Have to potty!” when he needs to, well, potty, and then will either walk over to his playstand or wait for us to carry him there before he goes. My caique (Elphie) is also potty-trained, but she just hops over to the right place when it’s time, or goes on command. Problem is, sometimes Miles gives that command: he walks up to her and says, “Go potty! Good bird, go potty!” and we have to hurry to get to her before she does as asked.
When we’re drinking something he wants, Miles swaggers over and says, “Have a drink?” and makes a slurping noise. Elphie loves games; if you point at her and make gun-bang noises, she’ll flop over onto her back; if you hold her around the body and bounce her feet up and down on the ground a few times and then let go, she’ll continue hopping up and down while laughing like a maniac; she loves to play hide-and-seek in a blanket – burrows under the blanket and stays quiet until you pretend to discover her, and then she bursts into laughter and hops around and begs for tickles. When she’s tired and it’s late, Elphie says “Night-night” and goes into her little hanging bed and keeps insisting “Night-night!” until we cover her up (Miles just gets cranky, like an exhausted child who’s reluctant to sleep). And there’s lots more; incredible little beings, birds are. Living with these guys is like having a very smart toddler – for decades.
Elphie, by the way, loves IrTrad and whistles along with tunes, usually in the same key/mode(!), though she doesn’t do the melody – she’s sort of a bouzouki-bird chugging along in the background (but with better tuning). Miles doesn’t seem to care much what kind of music’s playing.
), and she inspected it just to make sure. Then she started licking the juice from the lid! So I got a little dish, put a couple of spoonfuls of asparagus water -or whatever you call it- in the dish, gave it to her, and she finished it all up without delay, and then went to take another nap. She’ll probably want more next time.
If he liked you, he would hide, then when you came close unsuspecting, he would rush out of the bushes, leap in to the air as high as he could, and twisting would kick your leg with both of his hind legs. Being only a small cat, this would send him shooting back in to the bushes, where he would wait for the next person. 
If he didn’t like you, he would do the same thing, only his leap would end with him grabbing your leg and digging in with his claws so he could hold on, and would simply begin to chew. 
He his favourite target for this seemed to be the neighbour girl, as she was fond of skirts.