Dirty Tricks

[crinklecats]

What dirty tricks do your pets play on each other or you in order to get what they want?  I'm collating an A - Z from my gang.  Here is a recent entry.

S is for stealing.


If you live with other cats and you want to eat their food trying to steal the food directly from under their nose doesn’t work because you will get pushed out or even smacked round the head. Steal by stealth such as sniffing.  You need to sneak up behind the cat that is eating and start sniffing their bum, they will then turn away from their food and have to sit down to wash their bum where it has been sniffed and hey presto the dish of food is left unattended and you get to eat the lot. It is important that you only try this at home, do not try it with cats not in your own family as you could end up with a serious injury.  (Emu Crinklecat).

[Adrianne]

My wise old girl does a similar thing with Cupes, if he is up on the sofa and she wants the same place - she will roll around on the floor, invite him to play, maybe pick up a toy. then when he gets down she gets straight up in the seat!

[Kimmikins]

This one isn't a cat thing, it's something Sara and Scrumpy use to gain the best sofa spot or toy:

D is for Diversion

Outright theft of a prime spot on the sofa or the favourite toy is frowned on by the humans, and will result in exclusion from said sofa, or hiding away of the stolen toy. The best way to achieve posession is to divert the attention - pretend you want to play, bug the hell out of your opponent, this is your time to shine! Once they've vacated the sofa spot or the toy, play for about 30secs with them to keep up appearances...and then claim what they've abandoned!

[Jordan]

Domino is an only 'child' so its me he plays tricks on. If he wants to play and i'm in the middle of something he's learnt that if he brings me some rubbish out the paper basket etc I will tell him to leave it and get a toy instead and so he gets his playtime after all!!! sneeky!

[Adrianne]

do you know, all this backs up the training methods that we use...based in the fact that dogs use it on us- we use it back to train - its called 'Distraction-Action-Reward' (like mirror signal manoeuvre in driving it gets drummed into my clients)
they distract us, they indicates the action that they would like to see or do and we get rewarded by them (they quieten down, they stop the distraction)

[Dani]

 arent they all sneaky,this thread really made me giggle   . . . . ..  when dodge has not got the spot on the bed he wants and I am very inconveniently in the way,he will go to the front door,scratch it . . . I get up thinking he wants out . . . he will give the air a sniff,turn round and is back on the bed !! Cheeky