The pet meme , for Kim

If I remember correctly I was supposed to post 5 weird things my pets do. I have thought and thought and thought about this and really my pets are quite normal, it's the people who live in my house who are weird. So, I thought I'd tell you about our weird pet behaviour, or our weird behaviour towards our pets, or actually a bit of both.

One:
I have immense trouble naming pets. I bought a beautiful part persian kitten one day when I was a young girl - I was forbidden to buy a kitten as my family had been devestated by the death of our last cat and my parents had banned pets because the pain of losing them was too great: a rule I was destined to defy! - and this gorgeous cat had just the airs and graces of a supermodel. She was beautiful in every way. My little kitten even had a beauty spot just where Cindy Crawford has her beauty spot. So, because Cindy sounded too Brady Bunch-ish and Crawford sounded so elegant and sophisticated, I decided to call my beautiful kitten Crawford.

I took Crawford home and my family fell in love with her and I was allowed to keep her despite my blatant disobedience and we all admired her beauty spot. Until the next day. Strangely, the next day, the beauty spot had disappeared. It turned out that that which I had deemed so beautiful was really just a piece of dirt and had been removed from my little kitten's face. The cat I thought was such a refined creature was nothing more than a grot. However, the name - unlike the dirt - stuck.

I think it is kind of weird to name a pet after their distinguishing features and then have these very distinctive features change. It is even weirder when this happens twice! Which leads me to weird pet scenario two:

Our next cat - we still have Crawford but I tested the bounds and bought another cat - is also a part persian. She has beautiful black fur which has a tinge of red to it. Thus, she was named Ruby and this suited her well until one day I noticed that Ruby didn't look quite so Ruby anymore. What was once black with a ruby tinge became a lighter brownish with a white underbelly! Our little Ruby cat's fur changed colour. It was the weirdest thing, yet her name - unlike her fur - didn't change.

Weird pet scenario three:
One night at about two in the morning I awoke to the sound of scratching on the floor under my bed. Thinking the worst - I thought my room had been invaded by a massive cockroach or a (cringe) mouse - I took a bleary-eyed look under my bed to discover our blue claw yabbie. The little yabbie, whom we affectionately call Killer - yes, he does kill; unfortunately, he didn't trick us by changing to a placid temperament after we named him - had escaped from his tank and had travelled all the way down the other end of the house and had crawled under my door, into my room and under my bed. That is a pet sight you don't want to see at 2 in the morning. At least Killer wasn't in my bed.

Weird pet scenario four:
My littlest child thinks our cat can read. He can't read but he thinks our cat can. So, a while ago he asked me to write a note to our cat. It read:

Dear Ruby,
Please remember that God loves you.
Never forget to love Him too.
xxoo

This note was stuck to the end of a string which was then dragged in front of the cat so she could play and remember to never forget God.

Weird pet scenario five:
Ruby is such a lady that she will not leave the house if you rush and chase her out. Instead she waits for the door to be opened in a civilised manner and then she leaves the house calmly on request. All the shooing in the world cannot achieve what a polite gesture does.