Fun experiences with your pets

Hi everyone,

inspired by my story about my dog who ate the chocolate tree ornaments—wrapper and all—here are a few more little stories.

The dog in question, a German Shepherd mix, came to us at age 2 from a Hungarian animal shelter through an adoption agency—and, just to mention in passing, he had hardly any training.
Anyway, back then I didn’t always put everything away right away in the kitchen—the leftover Sunday schnitzel was sitting on a plate on the counter. Well, you can probably guess what happened, but the schnitzel was gone. All that
was left was a greedy culprit ;-) He must have thought, “What a great family—they even have schnitzel for dogs!” ;-)
Another time, a pan of grease became his target; he polished it off in a flash, and no stomach problems. I won’t even get started on the missing fruit. Since he’s big, he’d stand on his hind legs and snatch it down.
By now I ’ve been trained so well that everything gets put away right away, and no one is tempted to steal anything. These days, though, he doesn’t do things like that anymore.

Have you had any funny experiences with your pets? Share them with us!

Warm regards, Angi

The brown one in the photo is the culprit—Labi Sarah doesn’t do things like that :-) 

We haven’t had any pets for a long time now, since we travel a lot these days. But our last dog was also such a “thief.”
We used to make a Rumtopf every year, and by the end, the fruit-to-liquid ratio would often be off.
So I had a good 700 g of rum-soaked fruit left over and simply baked it into a thick cake, which I set on the fairly high windowsill in the kitchen to cool while I quickly ran an errand....
When I came back, the cake was gone; the spotlessly clean cake plate was sitting there on the windowsill, and the dog was lying in her corner, snoring, with the finest rum breath imaginable!
At times I really thought she wouldn’t make it—the night was more than restless—but once everything was back out of her system, she was fine again.
She was a slightly oversized female German Shepherd—also a rescue—who could easily eat everything off a normal-height dining table just as she walked by, and the high windowsill was no problem at all; she’d just stand up on her hind legs for a moment and she was up there.
All of a sudden, you become veeeery neat....

Well, Angi and Veronika, you can read all about what our kitty gets up to in the October–November projects! For Nala, no shelf is too high: wherever there’s something interesting, she’ll pull it down—whether it’s a teddy bear, a ball of yarn, or a spool of thread… The latter, in particular, is such a blast to run around the living room with, and it makes such a funny sound, too…
When I was a student, I worked as an au pair for a family in French-speaking Switzerland. Unfortunately, no one was home when the mailman delivered the package containing a cake my mom had sent, so he just left it on the front doorstep: literally a feast for my host family’s dog… Of course, he got sick afterward!

Unfortunately, I don’t have a pet—I’m allergic to anything with feathers or fur—but I had a cat when I was a kid. My brother had a big Märklin model train set with mountains and a tunnel; the cat would always sit at the other end of the tunnel, waiting for the train so she could knock it off the tracks with a swat of her paw.

Best regards, Inge

We used to have a tomcat named Puschel. He was very trusting and curious. When the schoolchildren walked past our house in the morning, he’d follow them all the way to the school building. Once, he even hopped on the S-Bahn and rode three stops down the line. Of course, he couldn’t find his way home after that. I put up notes everywhere, and sure enough, the person who’d taken him in read one of them. So, luckily, we got him back.

When we went on vacation, our neighbor was supposed to take care of him, but he’d always soon find a new place to stay where he could have some fun: he’d eat at the Greek restaurant nearby and sleep in the sweaters from the yarn shop. After our vacations, we always had to look for him and then get him used to us again.
Whenever he didn’t come home for a few days, we’d say, “Oh, is Puschel on vacation in Greece again?”

my Nelly—that was my cat’s name. She absolutely loved riding on the motorcycle. When my dad came home from work, she’d always be sitting about 1 km away at the hilltop, waiting for him by the side of the road. Dad would stop the motorcycle, and Nelly would jump onto the tank and ride home with him, proud as a lion.

Love, Inge

Animals have been part of our lives for years.

We’ve had a whole zoo at our place. All at the same time, of course: guinea pigs, rabbits, mice, a dog, cats, and even rats.

Lydia—one of our former cats—used to sit in the Christmas tree. Definitely more than once. Until the tree fell to the floor.

Moritz, our former tomcat, used to sleep in the guinea pigs’ cage.

Kira, our first dog, would drag Moritz by the ear through the apartment. He just put up with it.
Moritz himself liked to be on the wall unit. On the wall unit stood Maria (a plaster figurine). She wasn’t up there anymore. We (me and the kids) had glued her back in place and put her back up. That was our secret back then.

Now our two cats—real sweethearts—are relatively peaceful; at first, the orchids ended up on the floor. They weathered it well. 

My cats were this small two years ago

 and now?
and now nothing is safe 

Our Piet stole Lotti’s pacifier and quickly fled with it into his basket (luckily, I already had my phone in my hand anyway to snap a picture of him, because he was still so tiny and was up to all sorts of mischief).
Funnily enough, I have a very similar photo of Alex, his predecessor, from when he was a puppy and had also snatched the pacifier from Fiedi—who was just under 11 months old at the time (typical pug 😂).

Those are such funny stories. :) Just like in a storybook.

We used to have a tomcat, too. I had to watch him very closely to make sure he didn’t steal anything. One morning at breakfast, he was walking behind me on the radiator, and before I knew it, he’d snatched my slice of bread off my plate. I didn’t notice right away and was wondering what had happened. Then I saw my bread under the table and the cat happily munching on it.

I also once forgot to take a cheesecake off the table. Well… it ended up half-eaten. Luckily, I noticed it soon after; otherwise, he would’ve definitely gotten sick.

Ruth, I just helped a friend publish her children’s book. There’s a cat named Puschel in it, too. And the book is called “Grandma Tells Funny Animal Stories.” The author is Uta Winkler, and she experienced all of these stories herself. I read the book in one sitting.

That’s funny, Monika, that the cat in the book is also named Puschel! We named ours that back then because he had such a
fluffy tail.
Is your friend’s book available for purchase yet?

Yes, Ruth, it’s available for purchase now. Check out bod.de. Enter the title and the author’s name, and you’ll find it. It’s really very sweetly written.

You have some lovely, funny pet stories to tell.
Unfortunately, we don’t have any pets anymore, but we used to have a few (fish, a turtle, a budgie, a white mouse, a hamster)

So here’s my story: I used to have a budgie who was very tame and gifted at talking. He was also allowed “free flight” around the apartment sometimes.

Anyway, we were just in the kitchen preparing lunch, peeling potatoes, when Hansi suddenly flew right onto my hand to nibble on the potato. I had to be careful not to cut his little legs.
When we were eating, he flew onto the table, nibbled on the boiled potato, and then ran right through the sauce on my plate. That was really funny. I often think back on that.

Yesterday we had our first rehearsal for this year’s nativity play. My two girls are in it, and I’m on the rehearsal team, so we walked to the church together. It’s quite a ways away from where we live in town. Our cat Lily came along with us, as she often does. Usually she only comes as far as a certain street corner—she hasn’t dared to go any further yet. Yesterday, though, she didn’t turn back at the corner but kept walking with us. Shooing her away or ignoring her didn’t help at all—she followed us through the whole village, all the way to the church. We left her standing outside the door, but when the next mom brought her child to rehearsal, our Lily cheekily slipped right into the church :-) Maybe she wanted to play a little sheep? Or the donkey? There wasn’t a sheep in the nativity play, the role of the donkey was already taken, and the angel choir’s slightly off-key notes at the beginning didn’t really suit her, so she fled the church again at the next opportunity. She spent the next 1 1/2 hours hanging out in the cemetery. After rehearsal, she greeted us happily and walked home with us again, very well-behaved :-)

Thank you all—it’s so great to read about these wonderful experiences here.
Before the two dogs, I also had two cats, and things were pretty chaotic with them, too. They both lived long, happy lives. They’re all great for fun experiences :-) I couldn’t imagine life without animals at all. I’d especially miss all the fur and the constant vacuuming ;-)

It’s been ages, but it was interesting with our first dog—she loved the Kobold vacuum cleaner. Whenever we vacuumed, she’d hop around it happily, barking and wagging her tail. At one point, we went looking for her—she didn’t respond to our calls or the rustling of treat bags—and we eventually found her sound asleep by the vacuum cleaner. From then on, the vacuum cleaner head—which she used as a pillow—was kept in her official spot.

Our budgie loved to join in when we played the ladder game; when someone rolled the dice, he’d take their piece in his beak and move it—he often even landed on the right space.

Mom’s budgie always imitated the beeping of the stove and the sounds of the Thermomix. She’d always say, “I wonder what he’s cooking today.” He died about three years ago now.

When our second dog was supposed to go for her last walk in the evening, Mom would get ready, but Bessy would just lie there completely calm. Mom could do whatever she wanted, but eventually she’d come to me and say, “Bessy won’t go with me—can you?” So I did. I came out of my room, and before you could blink, she was at the front door of the old farmhouse, making a fuss for me to finally come along.

What both dogs always did was push open the door to Grandma’s kitchen—they were big enough (the first was a Collie mix, the second a sheepdog/German Shepherd mix)—when she was having dinner. She always gave them something from the table. Grandma always ate dinner right on time at 6 p.m.; the dogs could hear her when she pulled down the roller blind (it was a fabric one indoors), and we knew what time it was when the door downstairs opened.

  That was about 25–30 years ago now. But I still remember it as if it were yesterday.

Back then, there were still cats on the farm; they were farm cats and weren’t allowed in the living area. We still had a sow in the barn—the cows were already gone by then. 

Now we have an Australian bearded dragon and a Nano Cube with fish; other pets aren’t an option because my husband is allergic to anything with fur or feathers. And with my MS, I couldn’t even walk a dog when I have one of those strange days again. Managing the family is more than enough for me.