Funny Stories About Many Pets

Over the years I have owned so many pets that it is hard to remember them all, but I do remember some of the funny stories associated with owning them. This hub is to give you a selection of tales about the pets I have owned, and hopefully make you laugh in the process.

Joey was a great character. We adopted him from his owner after we had looked after him for a couple of weeks whilst the owner was on holiday. Sadly his owner's Wife had died a couple of years earlier, and having Joey only reminded him of her sad demise, mainly because the Wife had adamantly refused to take the tablets she needed most of the time, and when her Husband (Cyril), got frustrated by this, he would call her a 'Silly old Sod' for not taking the pills. Joey the Mynah bird had quickly learnt this expression, and still repeated it months after she had died.

Upon Cyril's return from holiday he asked us if we would like to keep Joey, and we readily agreed as we were already impressed by the quality of his mimicry. I was still only about 10 years old, but I adored Joey and used to be responsible for cleaning his large cage and feeding him his 'Sluis' soft bird food, ( Mynah Birds have very soft beaks and have to fed soft food such as fruit and pulpy bird food).

I never got bored of listening to Joey. His impressions were more like a tape recording, and would put any parrot to shame. His former owner Cyril had always had a very distinctive guffaw of laughter, and Joey had this down to a fine art. If you didn't know better you would have thought Cyril was in the room.

The only real problem we ever had with Joey was caused by the fact my Mum was a very ladylike woman, and therefore you can only begin to imagine her embarrassment when the Doctor had to come to the house one day, and as soon as he walked in the door Joey called him 'a silly old sod'. Poor Mum spent five minutes apologising and explaining that we hadn't taught him to say that, it was the former owner. Whether or not the Doctor believed her I will never know, but I do know Joey found it hilarious as he guffawed with Cyril's laughter in the background.

Sadly Joey managed to contracted Pneumonia, and he died a year or so later. It really did break out hearts, as the house seemed so quiet without him and his sense of humour.

Pixie was a great cat to have. In spite of his name he was quite possibly the most butch cat I have ever known, and after his neutering he weighed as much as a small dog, but all muscle, (even the Vet said), no fat!

Pixie was the ultimate hunter, in fact, if it moved, he caught it. I lost track of the amount of times Mum screamed to me to come and retrieve a mouse from his mouth as she was terrified of them herself. Pixie had mastered the art of miaowing with his mouth full of rodent, albeit somewhat muffled. When you opened the back door to let him in he would shoot past your legs, still armed with rodent, and so the pantomime would commence.

One time Pixie escaped outside the Vet's surgery following his routine vaccination. I worked at the same vets at the time, and remember my Mum bringing him and our other cat Cookie, in for their jabs in a cardboard box. Unfortunately when Mum left there were two small dogs in a car yapping furiously, and Pixie must have heard them, broke his way through the top of the box, and took off. We spent ages looking for him, but couldn't find him. After a few days we had just about given up hope of ever seeing him again, and then, one morning, I went out to feed my stud of Guinea-Pigs (Cavies), and there he was, large as life, sitting in the wall of our pig sty's without a care in the world. We were over the moon, and offered him food, but he wasn't hungry.

This amazing cat had found his way home through miles of lanes he had never seen or been down previously, and had obviously fed himself along the way. This was only the beginning of his expeditions.

Some years later he started to travel around in the car with my Mum and Step-Dad. Even going down to their sailing yacht with them and travelling out to sea. He did tend to stay "down below" on these trips, but loved being included and seemed to enjoy the adventure, so much so that my Step-Dad included him as a character in one of his novels 'Rough Sea Justice'. Pixie's nickname by now had become 'Black Dog' due to his personality, and that is the name he has in the book.

I will never forget Pixie, as he was an amazing character, but sadly he died after an illness that was never going to be curable, and in his later days he couldn't really walk, but still loved to be held and carried around the garden so he could survey his territory.

Marlene the chicken was named after the famous actress Marlene Dietrich due to the deep cluck she had, and much like the actress she had a deep seductive voice. We had Marlene from a chick, and as she was the only chick in the batch with speckled wings, she quickly singled herself out as a favourite, and I officially 'gave her' to my Mum. She soon developed a great personality of her own, and I would regularly go down the garden and bring her up to the house, tucked under my arm, so she could wander around the kitchen whilst we fed her scraps. I think she really grew to love this one to one attention, and we could cluck at her and she would cluck back, almost like having a conversation. No-one was more upset than me on the day I finally found her dead under our chicken coop after she had been missing several days. We loved this chicken like a cat, and although by now she was old in Chicken terms, we always missed her and never knew for sure what she died from.

Grumps was my Sister's Guinea-Pig, and he was the best pet ever. His personality far outshone his small size, and he was a real cutie. As my Mum was a little bit scared of him at first, (because she thought he looked too much like a rat, although goodness knows why, they are nothing alike), we nicknamed him 'Fat Rat' to wind her up. The name stuck, and he went to his grave with this name. He was such a funny little critter, charging along our lawn, little spidery legs flying out behind him, and you could have a whole conversation with him in squeaks and purrs. If we brought him into the house he would sit on our laps and go 'splat' in other words, relax totally so his whole body spread out like a blob of warm bread dough into the groove between your legs. I have seldom known a pet so small with such a large personality, and for this reason I highly recommend them as pets for children, they are funny, entertaining and pretty intelligent. To this day we all remember 'Fat Rat', and wish we could have him back again.

Stephenina was originally called 'Steve' (after an ex of mine who turned out to be a rat!), but when I found out she was a girl her name had to be extended to 'Stephenina'.

She turned out to be one of the best pets I ever had, and I could take her everywhere with me in thosedays, even to the local pub. Apart from scaring half the people who came into contact with her to death, she fitted in really well, and would happily sit on my shoulder being fed crisps by either myself or the other people in the bar in question. I remember she used to climb down my coat and into the pocket if she got tired, and I would often put the coat, complete with her in it, back into the car until I was ready to go home. On one occasion I had a bit of a crash in the car with her and a chap I was seeing. We spent the night in a local park sleeping in the car, and the following morning headed off to get a taxi home. Stephenina was sitting on my shoulder, and in spite of the fact my boyfriend was a good 6 feet in front of me, she managed to jump from my shoulder to his, pretty impressive when you consider a rat can only see about 6 feet altogether.

Stephenina actually moved to the UK with me, and lived in the same bedsit as I did. Sadly the local pubs were not so accommodating towards rats and asked me not to bring her in there. However, she happily lived in the bedsit, and often fell asleep under the warm radiators. The neighbours visiting young child fell so much in love with her that in the end I sent her on a train to Scotland to live with him and his Mum (once her and her fella finally split up). Stephenina lived to about two and a half years old, which is a very good age for a rat, and I still reckon they are the best pets of all for children. I would never have parted with her but for the fact the job I had in a rat breeding unit forbade us having pets of this kind at home due to the disease transfer risks.

Odin was a brilliant dog with a personality to match. We had him from a puppy and adored him from the word go. Okay, he ended up being completely untrained, (my fault), but his nature was kind and friendly, and he was very loyal.

I remember Odin used to open the back door with his chin, to let our rescue Cairn Cross Terrier Misty into the house, a kindness that didn't go unnoticed by my 'Doberman hating' Mum. She was quickly converted to loving Dobies, and changed her whole opinion of them based on Odin's behaviour.

He was also the Houdini of the dog world, and could easily escape from any attempts to confine him. I recall him twisting his entire body around simply to squeeze it through a broken fence panel and escape, not to mention jumping over any fence that was under 5 foot high. We did love him though, and in spite of him being a stressful dog to own, he was wonderful, and I was truly heartbroken when due to a hereditary form of Hepatitis (not the kind you inoculate against), his liver failed and he had to be put to sleep.

I brought his ashes back to Guernsey with me, and spent over £170 on a slate headstone for him. He is now buried in my parents garden beneath an archway, and I still go and talk to him to this day.

Percy was a short-lived pet, bless him. My sister won him at a fair, and once we got him home we invested in a large tank for him, plus a good few extra fish to keep him company. On the side of the tank we stuck this sticker promoting the food we fed them, which showed a super-fit, multi-coloured goldfish, flexing his muscles, with the caption 'I'm in fighting fit condition' underneath.

You can only imagine how sad it was to wake up one morning and find poor Percy bobbing around, dead, on top of the fish tank, right next to this sticker!

This is just a small proportion of the pets I have shared my life with, and the amusement they brought me. I hope this hub has made you smile or remember your own pets.

Sadly I don't have pictures of many of these pets, but I have improvised to the best of my ability.