Author Topic: Idiosyncratic animal behaviour (Read 3282 times)

Wowbagger · « **on:** 14 February, 2012, 06:40:16 pm »

Our dog has some strange habits.

We feed him twice a day, firstly after his morning walk, so usually about 11 a.m. The second feed is in the evening.

Quite often, he doesn't finish his food. Today, he left most of his kibble, eating just the tinned meat. Over the past few minutes, he's been fussing at me, in a "Why don't you fulfil my nondescript want?" kind of way. I noticed that he had plenty of food, so I sprinkled a few crumbs of liver cake into his bowl. He has now eaten all his food and seems satisfied.

The liver cake was tiny in quantity. If he's been properly hungry, he could just have eaten his food. It's as though he needs permission to do so.

He's like this if we ever leave him alone in the house. We always leave him with food and water, but invariably when we return they are untouched. He won't eat them until we are present.

Kim · « **Reply #1 on:** 14 February, 2012, 07:13:16 pm »

Isn't that standard pack animal behaviour? As (presumably) alpha, you get first dibs on the food, and eating it without permission would be Wrong.

Notsototalnewbie · « **Reply #2 on:** 14 February, 2012, 07:46:30 pm »

Cam never eats when we are not there.

My last dog, however, would wait until we left to ransack any cupboards left open, rip off the packaging, and eat any food he could find. We had to shut everything away really carefully. He used to be a stray, but then so did Cam.

Clearly I was not the alpha dog with him!

Wowbagger · « **Reply #3 on:** 21 February, 2012, 02:46:08 pm »

Morphy reaches the grand age of 8 next month and he's never been any trouble since we had him as a pup: easy to house-train, no teething chewing of stuff, never damaged furniture etc.

Suddenly, for the past couple of nights, he's been very unsettled. I think I've noticed him becoming more attention-seeking, squeaking as though he wants something when every known need has been met: he's been fed, has water, has been walked and doesn't seem to want to play a game, but appears to want something.

Also, the night before last Dez heard him scratching and he's done some damage to the doors and wallpaper. Although he has the run of the ground floor when we are about, when we go to bed we shut him in the kitchen where he has a bed and his food and water.

Any suggestions as to what might be happening in his pore brane to spark this off?

Chris S · « **Reply #4 on:** 21 February, 2012, 02:49:18 pm »

Bitch in heat nearby?

Wowbagger · « **Reply #5 on:** 21 February, 2012, 05:11:04 pm »

I suppose that could be it, but we live in a very built-up area with lots of dogs about so it would be rather surprising if that hasn't happened before in his life. He's certainly met bitches-on-heat in the park before now, and it's been a wrestling match to get him away sometimes!

rogerzilla · « **Reply #6 on:** 21 February, 2012, 05:28:19 pm »

I thought exactly the same as Chris, but assumed (wrongly) that he'd been "done".

Arch · « **Reply #7 on:** 29 February, 2012, 11:47:46 am »

Could you have got yourself a ghost?

Wowbagger · « **Reply #8 on:** 19 April, 2012, 09:48:52 pm »

Morphy caught a fly a few minutes ago and spent quite a long time chewing it, with great interest, appearing to try to look at it as he chewed it. I commented "God, he's a ridiculous animal!" whereupon he looked at me with his Proud Look and started wagging.

Evidently it gives him pleasure to be referred to as a ridiculous animal.

Kim · « **Reply #9 on:** 19 April, 2012, 09:49:50 pm »

...or he thought you were referring to the fly.

Wowbagger · « **Reply #10 on:** 19 April, 2012, 10:30:22 pm »

No, he keeps doing it. Evidently it's one of those expressions I've used without really thinking about it and he's latched on to it.

Kim · « **Reply #11 on:** 19 April, 2012, 10:36:14 pm »

Barakta's mum used to have a cat who had a similar reaction to the word "stupid".

rogerzilla · « **Reply #12 on:** 20 April, 2012, 09:25:43 pm »

Hector (the young tabby cat) has just been terrified out of his wits by a female blackbird, which chased him onto the patio and then into the house. They can make a lot of noise.

Wowbagger · « **Reply #13 on:** 22 April, 2012, 08:28:24 pm »

Last night our crazy dog was troubled by a bluebottle. In between trying to catch it, which he manifestly failed to do, he was very frightened by it and had to come for reassuring hugs.

Eventually I got fed up with this and took a clip-board off the shelf with which I gave the bluebottle the Archie MacLaren* treatment.

*A. C. MacLaren, England Captain. Sir Neville Cardus wrote of him "He did not merely hook the ball: he dismissed it from his presence."

http://www.cricketvoice.com/cricketforum2/index.php?topic=352.0;wap2 - a Guardian link in disguise. I fear that Sir Nev has recycled his own phrase.

Wowbagger · « **Reply #14 on:** 17 June, 2012, 11:43:19 pm »

Morphy was asleep when Jan and I returned from our bike ride this evening. When he did wake up it took him a while to realise that we were in the house. When he did, he had to come and make a fuss of us.

He is very endearing when he has just woken up. He wrinkles his nose. In most dogs this is a warning sign of bad temper, but not Morphy. He only does it when he's just woken up and is pleased to see someone. This evening he was so dopy he almost fell over.

Wowbagger · « **Reply #15 on:** 20 July, 2012, 09:27:32 pm »

Morphy knows that I'm going touring tomorrow. His behaviour changes when panniers appear and start being filled with essentials like sleeping bags and gas cylinders. He's now lying so close to my chair that his head is actually between the star-points of the base and his ears are in grave anger of being minced if I move at all.

Wowbagger · « **Reply #16 on:** 06 August, 2012, 07:39:02 pm »

Poor old Morph had a real crisis today.

He spent last week with a family he didn't know (holiday rehoming is so much better than kennels) and we only picked him up yesterday morning. Today we took him for a 5 mile walk along the sea wall and then went for a pub lunch which involved tying him up outside for a few minutes while we ordered food. You'd have thought he was being murdered from the noise he made! Even when Mel was sitting with him, as I went back into the bar to ask for some water for him, he was barking and yelping until I turned up again.

Wowbagger · « **Reply #17 on:** 07 August, 2012, 09:42:39 pm »

Quote from: Wowbagger on 20 July, 2012, 09:27:32 pm

Morphy knows that I'm going touring tomorrow. His behaviour changes when panniers appear and start being filled with essentials like sleeping bags and gas cylinders. He's now lying so close to my chair that his head is actually between the star-points of the base and his ears are in grave anger of being minced if I move at all.

Repeat performance this evening, caused by appearance of panniers & camping kit. At least Dez is staying with him this time and he won't be palmed off into a *strange home.

*Our home is strange, but he's accustomed to it.

Wowbagger · « **Reply #18 on:** 04 January, 2013, 11:00:56 am »

I've always been impressed by Morphy's observational powers. We had dogs before, when I was young, but I never noticed whether they were so observant. This could have been because they were mostly "outside" dogs who had a habit of roaming the village and were much more independent. Morphy spends almost all his time in the company of one or other of us.

He's very good at reacting to cues when we are about to go for a walk. Putting on coats, boots etc. is a bit obvious, but this morning he excelled himself. I had been generally faffing about doing breakfast, loading the dishwasher but the moment I took my reading glasses off to put my "outside" glasses on, he leapt up, ready for a walk. The interesting bit was that he was curled up with his back to me and I thought he was asleep.

He reacted to the sound of the glasses' arms shutting with a (to me) barely audible click.

Notsototalnewbie · « **Reply #19 on:** 04 January, 2013, 11:19:14 am »

Cam has learned that I get irate when I’m looking for something I can’t find, or trying to fettle something unsuccessfully. Unfortunately this now means that she hides or scratches at the back door even if I’m doing something as simple as changing batteries in a light.

I was really pleasantly surprised at how unbothered she was by Morphy on our walk. It’s probably because he seemed to understand that she didn’t want to play or indeed interact with him at all and just left her alone (some dogs pursue her relentlessly, despite the fact that she’s been ‘done’)

longers · « **Reply #20 on:** 05 January, 2013, 05:31:15 pm »

Does anyone know why the cat might be only eating from half the bowl?

Like this?

He gets great bisection and very straight lines most of the time.

He might have been doing it all his life but it's only now we're down to one cat that we've noticed.

Kim · « **Reply #21 on:** 05 January, 2013, 05:34:23 pm »

Fascinating...

Comfortable reach thing? Does he only approach the bowl from one direction? Teeth issues meaning he eats with his head tilted one way?

Or a visual/cognitive thing... sort of thing that humans do when they've had a stroke. Seems less likely, though, as cats are quite long-sighted and tend to sniff their way around bowls of food.

Wowbagger · « **Reply #22 on:** 05 January, 2013, 07:11:16 pm »

Perhaps the other cat had exactly the same habit.

Arch · « **Reply #23 on:** 07 January, 2013, 09:02:12 pm »

Quote from: Wowbagger on 04 January, 2013, 11:00:56 am

I've always been impressed by Morphy's observational powers. We had dogs before, when I was young, but I never noticed whether they were so observant. This could have been because they were mostly "outside" dogs who had a habit of roaming the village and were much more independent. Morphy spends almost all his time in the company of one or other of us.

He's very good at reacting to cues when we are about to go for a walk. Putting on coats, boots etc. is a bit obvious, but this morning he excelled himself. I had been generally faffing about doing breakfast, loading the dishwasher but the moment I took my reading glasses off to put my "outside" glasses on, he leapt up, ready for a walk. The interesting bit was that he was curled up with his back to me and I thought he was asleep.

He reacted to the sound of the glasses' arms shutting with a (to me) barely audible click.

We had a guinea pig when I was a kid, who came indoors to live in the winter - her hutch and run moved into my little sister's bedroom (the room with most floor space).

Every evening, Mum would be the last one up, and before coming to bed she'd go round turning lights off, making herself a mug of hot water, and fetching a last salad snack for the pig from the fridge. Then off went the kitchen light, and up she came to give the pig her snack.

The guinea pig got to know this routine, and once she'd heard the kettle boil, the fridge door open and close, and the kitchen light switch click, she started whistling in anticipation.

When she lived outdoors, she got to know the sound of Dad's feet as he walked home from the shops in the morning - also a precursor to feeding. She whistled then too.

Wowbagger · « **Reply #24 on:** 30 May, 2013, 11:18:36 am »

The other day Morphy was gazing out of the patio doors and every so often he would start wagging, then stop, then start again.

It appeared to me that he was watching a butterfly through the glass. When it was fluttering about it made him happy. When it stopped he wasn't so happy.

Peace, man!

Author Topic: Idiosyncratic animal behaviour (Read 3282 times)

Chris S