QUIRKS

Ben has this funny quirk. He uses his huge pet bed as a pillow only!

Hahaha, Pepper does that sometimes, too. My favorite, though, is when she'll use things like her bed or blankets as a Pillow for just her behind.

Scottie also likes to use her pillow for just her bottom and I sing the Will & Grace "Subway Tush" song to her when she does it.

The weirdest thing she does is, if we are eating Minstral chocolates (my favourite) she begs for one but won't eat it unless it is bitten in half first.

OK Mandy & Jody, I feel better! lol , the bottom on the pillow or blanket is too funny. But I manage personally to do TWO chocalates at a time.

Sure my dog eats liquorice, but chocolates? I'm shocked ;-)

If we whisper, Bones will jump on the back of the couch and bark at the stuffed deer head. It doesn't matter what we say or who we are talking to.

Cal, I can picture that happening! What is Bones thinking? That only that deer head talks like that? Love it!

One odd thing Scottie does is run and hide if anyone sneezes.

She's so bad that sometimes if you even just say the word "atishoo" in a quiet voice, she hides.

If my husband ever tries to tickle me, Pepper jumps on his hands and starts attacking him. :) I love it!

My sister's cockapoo has a well-worn stuffed duck. If it's around, Ebbie always offers her treat to the duck, whining, before consuming it herself. Vets, trainers--no one can explain the behavior. Maybe Ebbie thinks the toy is her puppy?

(Just an FYI, chocolate is supposed to be toxic to dogs. Probably not extremely so, as my dad trained his 25 lb dog with bits of chocolate.)

No it really is pretty toxic to them. Especially small dogs can get into real life threatening trouble by eating chocolate. But it's a number of factors : body weight of dog, amount of chocolate, purity of chocolate... Most "chocolate" doesn't really contain that much actual chocolate.

Finnegan may be part cat. He keeps rubbing up against people and the furniture. He really puts his all into it when he's rubbing against the rocking chair. He usually moves it a bit. He's also left pawed. I'm working on teaching him to shake and he always gives me his left paw.

The dog I had before Sophie liked walking slowly under tablecloths or any dangling piece of fabric (a blanket draped over the back of the couch, for instance). All we could figure was that she liked the feeling of the fabric brushing against her back.

Bonnie used to like getting her backside rubbed - she'd stand about a metre in front of me with her backside pointing towards me, then back up slowly until I reached out to rub her butt -- and if I ignored her, she'd just keep backing up all the way until she pushed in aginst my legs, then she'd wiggle her behind to give herself a "butt-rub".

Here's another one for Ben. He suckles-meaning he gets part of his bed or my shirt and tummy if he's lying on me and he pushes and needs with his paws much like a kitten one against it's mother. He's not biting, it's more like he's needing something in his mouth. So I look this up and read it is more prone to happen when dogs have been re-homed very early in their life-Ben was given to the pound, then adopted, then brought back because they said he chewed, then we found took him all in his first 7 weeks! The site also said this is equivilent to thumb sucking in children and most dogs don't outgrow it. Of course I think it's "cute". He does it more when he's tired and nods of to sleep that way! Guess he needs a blankie!

By the way--I have giggled at each of these little quirks! Each are just so loveable.

Pepper like to lay under our futon. She started when she was a puppy and could stand up under it. now she has to crawl on her belly to get in or out. i love it because you just hear scrambling underneath you, and the a dog head appears between your feet.

RE: #16: Finn has a blankie in his kennel! He also will suckle on it, and used to bite them. So at first, he would shred off the ends over time. He still does that a little bit, but not much. They also get dirty from it, and it will only wash so many times. He doesn't do it to anything else except the blankie that's in his kennel. So I've bought several baby blankets for 25 or 50 cents from garage sales.

Now that I think of it, Finn was also a dog that was taken back. But only once. A young couple bought him, got less than a mile down the road. He got sick and they brought him right back. I got him 3 weeks later.

ETA: reference to post, and bottom paragraph

Kirby, if they took him back for getting sick in the car, perhaps it is best that Finn ended up with you! Hello? Pups get sick.

Miles has recently decided that eating off the floor is infinitely more fun than eating from his bowl. He will jump on his bowl until it tips over, scattering the food everywhere. Now sometimes we play 52-kibble-pick-up and I sprinkle the food for him to reduce the scattering. Other times we play "Find it!" and I hide little piles of food for him to sniff out all over the house. He loves Find it! And all the other times, he jumps on his food bowl until it dumps. :)

Hi, I'm new to this group. My husband & I have a beautiful Golden Retreiver named Ginger. When you aren't paying attention to her, she will put her paw on you and just leave it there. If you take it off, she puts it right back on. It is a Golden thing.

Welcome to the group, Beecharmer! :)

RE: #20-Welcome to Beautiful Ginger and BeeCharmer! That is such a Golden thing-my 13 yr old Golden still does her paw on your leg--espcially if other puppies tend to be getting too much of her attention.

My late puppy Bert used to play "shower ball" with me. This game involved him dropping his ball into the tub while I was taking a shower, and my throwing it out - over the top, out the side, sometimes under the bottom of the curtain. No quick showers for me - I had to schedule in at least twenty minutes to allow for the game.

ah, cynthia that is so funny. "Showerball" Where do our babies come up with such quirks?

Sophie loves the fall because it is cricket season! She has discovered that sometimes, when she is outside, some little creature in the grass will jump away from her, and she can try and pounce on it! Then, she follows it with her nose, darting her face toward it every few seconds, and pawing at the grass to make it jump again. It's so funny to watch!

She is interested in house flies, too, but does not like that they can fly higher than she can jump.

Pepper can be scarily patient with flying insects. She'll just sit there watching them waiting for them to get near her and land, then...SMACK.

Those would both be Finnegan as well. Crawling bugs he noses until they move. Sometimes he tries to eat them, but drops them when we tell them too.

His favorite is the big grasshoppers. He loves to chase them.

He'll sit still and just watch birds flying way above him, but ignores the ones on the ground. Watch out, though, if you're a leaf. He'll pounce on those.

Thought this would be the best thread for this story.

So we have a rule for Sgt. Pepper that she can't chew her bones on the couch unless a blanket is there covering the couch. So today I'm sitting here eating dinner and watching "how I met your mother" when Pepper jumps up on the couch. She sits down next to me but I, assuming she just wants my food, ignore her. 1 solid min. later she is still there and has not moved or whined or anything. So, I turn around to look at her and she is just staring at me with her bone in her mouth...just staring at me. Then she looks at the couch and back at me, raises her paw and puts it on my arm. I look at her and say, "I'm sorry did you want a blanket?" So I get up and get the blanket from the other room. When I come back she hasn't moved at all, still sitting on the couch with the bone in her mouth. So I put the blanket down, she moves onto the blanket, puts the bone down, licks my hand and proceeds to chew on her bone...My dog is way to smart for me.

Look how beautifully marked Pepper is! Each time I see her photo I can not get over her coloring.

And is that not an extremely well mannered lady you have there, Mandy! I love it, she out behaved herself. She's probably thinking, "whew, got her taught that trick after a few attempts"!

Seriously, I really felt like the lick was her saying "Good girl"

On our walk today, I found that Sophie does not like drifts of fall leaves, especially when they cover the sidewalk. She will go around them, if possible, or try to jump over them. She won't walk through them, even if she sees me do so. Apparently, leaves (like numerous other things in Sophie's world) are scary.

Silly puppy

My daughters dog, Gracie, doesn't like you to make a noise with your mouth closed. It will drive her crazy and she will run into the bedroom and scratch herself

Miles is opposite of Sophie about the leaves. He likes to jump in them so they blow around and then try to catch them before they blow away.

Finn's the same way. If a leaf moves even a fraction of an inch, he's chasing it.

My darling rough collie had so many adorable quirks - she seemed to add to her repertoire in order to keep us entertained.

A couple of my favourites:
If she was angry she would go into the kitchen and bang the lid of the bin loudly to express her displeasure.
If she was apologising for bad behaviour she would drop into a stretch at my feet, and then show who was boss by nibbling on my ankles before sitting up.
If she knew that I was going out, and her pain medicine was due within the next couple of hours, she'd bark at the cupboard until I remembered and gave her a cover-dose.
And when I was sad or lonely she'd come and sit with me until I couldn't help but feel that everything was going to be alright.

I taught both the miniature schnauzers to play dead when I point my finger at them and say bang. But each has his/her own way: Nicky falls over on his side with all four legs pointing out, stiff, and stares at me...Greta falls quickly to her back and does a spread eagle. Both of 'em are dead!

Not as cute as some of the other tricks and quirks listed here but it does make me laugh.

Our dog before Kirby, Sammy a miniature schnauzer, would play dead so well. We'd point our finger at her and say bang. She'd fall on her side and stay absolutely still. Except for her little tail wagging back and forth. Kirby will also play dead, but only for a few seconds. It's more of a flesh wound.

Skeelo is a fairly quiet dog but just occasionaly he will bark out the window at something going on in the road outside. If I tell him to 'whisper' he (like his predecessor, Biggles, before him) has perfected the close-mouthed woof.

OH, these are so darn cute.

Foggie...In Georgia right now, I can not imagine walking Sophie. Poor thing, how these are untrustworthy objects to her sure to cause her harm. Our little Sheltie Girl, Charlene left us last year at 13 yrs & never attempted to catch a treat. Her little doe face was so insulted by the snack & when I tried to balance it on her nose she would just go to her bed and forget the treat, like I just did not know how to treat a little lady!

#33 pollysmith-(giggling) it's funny enough the image of Gracie running to another room over this...but the added "and scrathes herself" was another chuckle....."Let me get those demons off me"!

#36 Mystery-I will one day have another collie-The story of the "cover-dose" quirky or not, that is a fine example of how our collie would communicate to us. Just an odd 6th sense about him. What a lovely, lovely breed.

#37 & #38 Adorable! Maggie & Kirby, my hubby wants Ben to play dead so badly. Ben totally gets it but when I point my finger and shoot, my mothers lil' elderly 7 lb Yorkie, comes barking, jumping up & stopping me....he's in to gun control one might guess!

Quirks & their little personality traits so uniquely theirs...!

#40 -- Sophie won't catch a treat from the air, either. She will take it from my hand, or if it's dropped on the floor, she will pick it up after investigating it, but she won't catch it. She just watches it fly by, and then goes to it, to check it out. I'm wondering if this is because she doesn't have another dog competing for stuff that is dropped on the floor!

Sophie just chewed up another ink pen. She's good about not chewing shoes, furniture, etc., but don't leave a cheap plastic pen anywhere she can get to it!

Kirby did that a few years ago with a blue gel ink pen. It was all over the brand new carpet in the living room. Of course it was my fault for leaving the pen where he could reach it. We scrubbed and scrubbed. Used everything we could think of, and everything the carpet store gave us (for free, I might add). We still have a few little spots near the couch where it would not come out. We can kind of hid it with the coffee table, but it will be there for ever. And do you know...I put Kirby in the bath tub and it came out of his fur very easily. grrrr.

#43 -- Fortunately, she hasn't gotten hold of any gel pens yet, and hasn't managed to get ink out of the ones she's chewed (though she's come close -- she had the inner stick that holds the ink pulled out of one and was starting to chew it before I caught her).

My dog Milo won't eat his food out of his bowl. He takes a mouthful out of the bowl, walks into the living room, spits it out on the floor and then eats it.
He also acts as a sock collector. He goes around to the bedrooms and gets all the socks he can find on the floor, brings them into the livingroom and stuffs them down the cracks of the couch.
He begs for tea as well, when he hears the kettle pop he sits at the counter so you can make him a bowl of tea while you make your own.
Every time the phone rings, he jumps up off the couch or wherever he's laying, and charges around the house to find the noise..

> 42 - 44: That can get pretty bad. I'm a professional artist and I wouldn't like to count the number of paint tubes (both oils and acrylics), pastels, crayons, felt pens, etc., consumed by my dogs. It does occasionally brighten up their fur though - imagine white shepherd with large purple spots ;-)

ashley,
Welcome to you & Milo! I have a cat that is a sock collector. She meows like she has caught a mouse! But a dog doing this is too funny. And a tea drinker I have never heard of. A co-worker has a dog that drinks orange juice and has a piece of toast each morning with her. Never thought of offering Benjamin anything. He adores carrot sticks though!

Post a pic of Milo if you can. We'd love to see him. Welcome again from wet noses in Atlanta.

The only other think that Milo goes nuts for it Watermelon. If we bring one in the house (not cut) he'll sit and stare at the counter for hours.. and when we cut it he goes nuts! So whenever we have watermelon, Milo get his own bowl.

Well, I had to wear bright green and white St. Patricks Day socks today. This is because the black socks I was going to wear with my green school shirt were stolen by a puppy who chewed on them. No holes, but too slimy to wear today.

It has spurred a trip to Wal-Mart to find more black socks to wear.

ashley & kirby
For real? Socks? Well, I suppose that would prove to be less expensive than the typical chewing on shoes.

This will be our first holiday with Benjamin. My first prayer is that I can keep him from chasing the cats up the tree. I can not imagine what his reaction to the tree will be.

Sophie loves socks! She doesn't chew them much, just pulls them out of the basket, carries them around, and leaves them in the living room. Sophie's ideal house has a thin layer of socks carpeting the entire floor.

Kirby and Finn work as a team on socks. Kirby will get in the hamper to steal a pair, and Finn will take one of the socks from him. They both end up with a sock to slobber on. The difference, however, is that Kirby will only chew on it if he sees you. He wants a trade for it. So if you don't pay attention to him, he'll just lay his head on the sock. Finn will chew, and chew, and chew until you grab it from him.