Renzatic on 5/10/2013 at 22:58

---

I didn't stop him. There's no way in hell I'm gonna pull a giant spider bolus out of a cats mouth.

driver on 6/10/2013 at 20:26

---

I had a cat called Hugo, used to like eating wasps. You'd think that was a one-time experiment, but nooo....

PeeperStorm on 9/10/2013 at 01:44

---

At 4 years old I was given a Cocker Spaniel. In a fit of originality I named her Penny. She liked to eat bees and steer manure. She also tended to dream about fighting, and often woke the neighbors in the wee hours with the sleep-growling and barking. She died of old age in her sleep one warm summer night. I hope she kicked the ass of whatever she was fighting with.

Later, after moving to sub-suburbia, got two cats. A calico named Patches and a black named Licorice. Patches liked to shit on the throw rug next to my bed, and brought home lots of little dead half-things. She also learned to jump up and hit the doorbell when she wanted to come in. Licorice was the very definition of a Cool Cat, and would respond if you talked to her. Otherwise she'd just hang around and purr. She died fairly soon because the former owner had neglected to tell us about her existing health problems. The folks soon got a replacement black cat, but named her Jive because she drooled a lot when she purred.

In high school my folks got a puppy, a half Asian wolf/half German Shepard. I was tasked with naming her and dubbed her Juno, both because she was born in June and because Juno was the name of a Roman goddess who's a complete bitch. Within a week the cats had trained her to use a litter box, which meant that we had to buy a really big litter box for her. She liked to chew up bleach bottles (whether empty or not) and tin cans, and had a talent for destroying any dog toy that was supposed to be unbreakable. You could play tug of war with her by hooking your fingers so that she could fit her upper and lower fangs around them, yet she never bit down, regardless of how rough the contest got. If we played fetch with her for too long, she'd keep going until the pads of her feet were bleeding, so we had to be careful about that. When my friend from across the street would come over, she'd sit on his feet and get so excited that she'd pee on them.

We gave the dog and the cats to a family friend when we moved into a "no pets" townhouse.

After college and after a couple of shared housing situations, I got my own apartment, along with a cat from the local shelter named Ethel (after Ethel Merman, because of the quality of her singing). She had had a litter at the shelter, the last of the kittens was given away before I got to her, and they insisted on spaying her before I got her home. The result was that she spent her first day with me staggering around, stoned out of her gourd from anesthetics, crying pitifully for her kittens and bumping into furniture. Things rapidly improved, and she developed a fondness for sneaking up on me and licking my toes whenever I wasn't wearing socks or shoes.

A year later, one of my coworkers gave me a runt kitty named Buck. He had an odd mixture of short hair and long hair, and the long hair stuck out under the pads on his feet, meaning that he sometimes didn't get very good traction. This frequently resulted in hilarious slapstick comedy when he'd come running into the bathroom, jump up on the edge of the tub, slip, and fall into the tub full of water. He never learned to avoid doing that, but at least he was always clean.

Eventually I moved into a "no pets" apartment, and gave the cats to a coworker.

Fast forward to the present day: One cat, whom I have posted about here before, from a local shelter. He's diabetic, arthritic, only has one lung, and sometimes pees on the carpet, but he keeps the area around the house free of mice, frogs, lizards, and rattlesnakes. He's not at all shy about telling me what's on his mind, and likes to chew on pretty much anything that's made of plastic. He's also very big, tall enough to grab food off of the kitchen counter, and he intimidates the two retrievers who live at the ranch next door.

My other cat showed up on my doorstep one day and demanded to be let in. My reaction was something like "Poor little kitten, all covered with ticks and starving to death!" Turned out that she was a fully grown mini-cat, weighing in at just over 5 pounds. These days she might be best described as rotund. She's the designated attention hog. You will pet her, whether you want to or not. She doesn't talk much, but when she does it's with a squeaky little kitten voice.

Kolya on 11/10/2013 at 19:34

---

We used to have a family cat named Babette. The way we got her (and got to keep her) was already quite dramatic. But anyway, she grew up with us and shared our life, secretly accompanying us through the backyards when my sis was brought to kindergarten. And she moved with us to western Germany in 1988.
When me and my sis moved out years later Babette stayed with her. Eventually she grew 18 years old before she got seriously ill. After a visit to the vet her health quickly deteriorated and it was clear she wouldn't make it much longer. The vet suggested they would send an assistant to put her to rest at home.
That day, I think it was in 2003, our whole family gathered, plus lots of friends who knew her. Babette laid herself down on a pillow on the windowsill and watched us drink to her. Every now and then someone would go over, stroke her a bit and whisper something to her. I also gently stroked her very thin body. While I was doing so a small shudder suddenly ran through Babette. Her body first tightened then relaxed and she was gone. Five minutes later the vet's assistant arrived to put her down but there was nothing to do. Everyone was crying but was also happy for her because she got the perfect exit. We all said we hoped we could leave like that some day.
We had her body cremated and the remains still sit in a colourful little urn in my mom's cupboard.

A few weeks ago my mom got a new cat. She named her Jonesy after Ellen Ripley's cat. She's the cutest little bugger.