What are some of your silly animal stories?

When I was a child living in Panama, there was a man at the local park who had a monkey that did tricks.

Where we lived, all the houses had bars on the windows to keep out thieves. One day the family came home and we had been burgled, but the police could not find how the thieves had gotten in the house, as it was completely locked. My mother’s jewelry box had been stolen, which had some unusual and distinct pieces.

The police caught the thief when he tried to pawn the jewelry. Turned out to be the man with the monkey. He had taught the monkey to go through the bars on the windows and steal boxes on dressers. He had committed a string of mystery burglaries.

My friend got a lovebird recently and it loves my glasses: http://imgur.com/32ald3q

I was setting a frog free as a toddler at a pond near the beach when a seagull swooped down and ate it. Nature revealed itself to me that day.

When a friend of my family moved house, they weren’t able to take their two cockatiels with them. We took the homeless birds in.

They were Sunshine – a pretty yellow bird, and Petrie – Gray with a bit of golden fuzz on his head.

My friend had taught Sunshine to whistle the tune to I Saw the Light.

Thinking we could teach Petrie a song, too, and have a pair of musical birds, we started trying to train him to whistle the Andy Griffith Show theme (the bird on the photo here looks just like Petrie. Haha)

Unfortunately, Sunshine – brilliant as she was – knew nothing about the distinction of one song or another, and ended up getting both I Saw the Light and the theme song in her repertoire. Only she never sang them separately. She’d get two bars into I Saw the Light and start the high-pitched bridge to the theme song.

And dum-dum Petrie never learned a thing.

I broke my singing bird.

@Mariah aww, that is so cute….

Oh my gosh @Mariah my heart just melted! ♡♡♡
@zenvelo That is so sneaky! Sneaky but smart… :o
@Seek Oh no! Do you still have them? They are amazing creatures. I was reading about them the other day.
@ARE_you_kidding_me Oh dear oh dear :(

@MilkyWay – No, this was when I was a teenager. The birds were rehomed with my stepfather’s niece and her kids during one of my mom and stepfather’s numerous “breaks”.

I don’t know that I’d keep birds again. They’re really not meant for cage life.

Oh my, so many. I’ll share 2.

One standout was my Chinese goose “Marwyn”, who turns 18 this July, attacking my Military Macaw some years ago.
I put my parrot ” Louie” outside on his giant cage in the yard while I was cleaning it. He had his wings clipped and liked just hanging out on his perch and climbing around a small tree.
His cage was only about 20 feet from my back deck and I went into the house briefly leaving him sitting on top of it on his perch.

About 2 minutes later I heard a horrible commotion, deathly shrieking, and went running out to see WTH was going on. Apparently Louie decided to climb down the side of his cage and was toddling across the lawn towards the deck and sliding glass door when Marwyn came around the corner and jumped him. I run out to see the goose standing on the parrot plucking him while poor Louie just lay on the ground screaming. haha
That parrot could have crushed Marwyns head like an egg but he was such a baby he just lay their screaming.

He was fine, minus a few green feathers wafting around and then, for ever after, it was a cardinal rule that Louie was never left alone in the yard unless Marwyn was in his pen. lol

Another was waking in the middle of the night yeas ago to the sound of my ancient little 18 year old siamese cat ” Mao”, pathetically yowling from the living room.
Went out to see what was the matter and apparently she had tried to jump from the top tier of the cat tree down to the next level and had somehow gotten a toy mouse that was hanging from a string, wrapped around one her hind legs.
I walked out to see poor demented little Mao hanging upside down from the cat tree by her hind leg slowly twirling in a circle. She was completely limp just rotating around and moaning a sad ” Maooooooooooooooo.”

Poor thing. lol

My sister is scared to death of frogs. I mean, she has a real phobia about them. We’ve never been able to figure out why. because I remember her playing with frogs when we were little, but something happened somewhere and she’ll literally go into a quivering melt down if there is one around.
My son, on the other hand, LOVES frogs and snakes and stuff. He’d catch them every chance he got because we didn’t have TV when they were growing up so they had to find other things to do. He catches them to this day.
One time we were at a family reunion in Texas. He went frog hunting outside of the motel, and brought back about 5 of them and put them in a coffee can that he’d poked holes in the lid of. I don’t know where he got the can. He had them sitting against the wall, near the door.
My sister came by our room and was standing just inside the door way, with that can full of frogs about 3 feet to her right, talking to us.
My son was standing next to me, and when she came in and stopped by that can he started shaking!! I casually dropped my arm around his shoulder and unobtrusively grasped the back of his neck in a Spock attack grip.
He was DYING to tell her! I felt him take a breath to get ready to speak, and my grip just got tighter and tighter and tighter! We were both so tense, but trying to act natural, you know.
Then she finally left, and he just FELL on the floor, kicking his legs and screaming!!! I threw my self face down on the bed screaming in relieved laughter!!!
It took us a long time to recover.
A few years later I told my sister about that and she went white almost fainted!!

@Coloma, funny that with birds you have a “cardinal” rule!
My gf and I once took our daughters to a picnic at a bird sanctuary. We had been there several times before without incident so never thought as anything about it. We grilled hotdogs and were sitting at a picnic table when a gaggle of geese accosted us. One old gander in particular was extremely aggressive and kept hissing. We took turns running to lead the geese away and let our three year olds eat in peace. Then the seagulls got involved and were dive bombing the table. Two birds took a hotdog RIGHT OFF THE GRILL! That was enough. We had already retreated to the table top. We each grabbed a daughter and made a run to the car, a abandoning the food and soda.

Wow. Reminds me of a movie…...

@Jak Haha, yes, birds, geese and seagulls are quite brazen. I had seagulls rip into a lunch tote at the beach a few years ago. It was un-zippered but they pulled it over and grabbed baggies full of all kinds of stuff and got them open and devoured everything while we were a few hundred yards away. haha

@Dutchess_III – that was a great movie!: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CUUKrHO3wZU

Hi ya @RocketGuy!

Some years ago, when we lived In an apartment complex in Austin, I was taking the garbage out to the dumpster one night, when I noticed a tail sticking out of a tin can. It looked like it might be a kitten, and I could detect no movement. Knowing what psychotic assholes some people can be, I feared the worst, but I picked up the can and gave it a little shake, and out popped a little kitten, none the worse for wear. Guess it had been sniffing the contents of the can, and gotten stuck. It looked at me for a minute and then ran away. A true life case of “curiosity got the cat” I suppose.

Dakota is so smart and so funny. I went to Arby’s for the first time in eons. I got their roast beef and Swiss dip. Really good. But, of course, I couldn’t eat it all. It was cut in half and I ate one half and a few bites out of the next, then set the leftover by the sink.
That evening I decided to give it to the dogs. When possible, I show preference for Dakota because she’s old. And smart. And beautiful. Dutchess works very hard to hide her intelligence.
So I grabbed the sandwich and started to head into the laundry room to put it in their food bowl, when I realized I could see Dakota watching me from the living room, but I couldn’t see Dutchess, which was odd. Dutchess is usually right on top of Dakota.
I wanted just Dakota to have it, without Dutchess knowing it, so I couldn’t call to her. I shook the sandwich at her and her ears went up. Then I snuck into the laundry room and very quietly put it in the food bowl.
Came back out and Dakota was still alertly watching me, but waiting for me to say something. She’s not all spry like she used to be, and getting up can be a chore.
I started making wild gestures, pointing to the laundry room. I got really silly. Rick would have been proud of me. I swung my hands around the snapped them to attention, like Top Gun, pointing at the laundry room. Dakota puts her head to the side.
Still, without a sound, I faced the laundry room, stuck my rear out and pointed to the laundry room, staring at her. She put her head to the other side.
I quietly tried to jump up and down, mouthing “FOOD!! EAT!! GO!!” pointing wildly at the laundry room.
Dakota just kept putting her head from one side to the other, trying to HEAR me! Her intelligent eyes gazed at me like, “Have you lost your freakin’ mind?” but she didn’t get up.
Finally I sighed and went into the bathroom, across the hall from the laundry room, grumbling silently, and making faces at her and pointing at the laundry room until I disappeared.
Closed the bathroom door. When I came out Rick said, “Did you give Dakota something to eat?”
I just cracked up! I said, “She got it!!!”
Rick said, “Well, she came out of the laundry room with something brown in her mouth and I thought she was eating the cat.”
Of course, Dutchess was there at that point, too, going, “What’s going on???? What did I miss this time???”
It was hilarious.