Ah, the life of a pet owner. When you first adopt a cat or dog, you imagine patiently training them to be your companion and follow your rules. And then, after a few months, you may find that you're actually following a lot of THEIR rules. Like providing belly rubs on demand. Or taking them for walkies at the exact same time every day. At a certain point, it becomes hard to tell who really belongs to whom.
Reddit user /u/dlordjr posed a question on AskReddit: "What 'rule' has your pet instituted in your house that you now follow?"
People listed all sorts of rules that their pets enforce, from never closing any doors to never whispering in the house. All sorts of animals rule their owners, even parrots!
"If my parrot asks 'what are you doing?' Anyone in the immediate vicinity must respond with what they're doing," one user wrote. "He will throw a tantrum if he doesn't get an answer."
Some of these answers are truly strange. But somehow, all of them are also soooo cute.
Many of our pets establish their own wacky household rules, and we go along with them, because… they're just so cute.
A recent AskReddit thread asked users to share the rules that their pets have created in their households, and the responses are both hilarious and adorable.
Some of the rules are very common, like one cat owner whose cat will not tolerate any closed doors in the household. I can practically hear the yowling now!
Also common: the pet who steals your seat every time you get up for any reason. Mmm, so warm.
“We call it ‘paying the toll,'” one user wrote. “Our doxie will instantly steal your spot if you get up to go to the bathroom or something, and she won’t move until you’ve sufficiently rubbed the belly. So to get your seat back, you have to pay the toll!”
Some of the rules are a lot more oddly specific to one animal. Like one dog who demands to go on car rides every single day (because walks aren't enough anymore!) and also wants you to chase him around while clapping. Never heard of that one, but OK!
And then there are the animals who are spoiled beyond belief.
"Our idiot cat, Potato, is a spoiled princess who won’t eat her food unless someone picks her up and gently sets her in front of her bowl," one Reddit user wrote.
"My boyfriend encourages and enables this behavior, to the point where now, if you put food in her dish, she won’t even look at it unless she’s carried over."
One cat has an unexpected rule:
“When brushing my teeth, I must leave the faucet on while I brush so my cat can drink from the bathroom sink,” the cat mom wrote. “If I don’t, I get screamed at in the form of very loud meows.”
Apparently, some cats are into water, and other cats are into… ice cubes! That's a pretty affordable (although very temporary) toy, at least.
One of the weirdest rules is the cat who insists on her owner watching her while she poops, particularly when she's constipated. She even has a special meow to communicate that it's poopin' time.
One dog has managed to ban whispering in the entire house. No secrets allowed!
Also, this rule making is NOT confined to cats and dogs. Other animals can be equally as demanding and finicky.
“My Russian tortoise needs to be fed every morning by 9:30. If I don’t wake up by then, he’ll scratch his wooden house very loudly and obnoxiously until he sees or hears me getting up from bed,” one Reddit user said.
One user's parrot likes to ask people what they're doing. They MUST answer, or he'll throw a tantrum.
Speaking of birds…
One user has multiple birds who each come with their own set of rules.
"My lorikeet needs a scritch before bed time, my caique needs a kiss and a whistling duet, and my Cockatiels decode when bedtime is for everyone and will not stop chirping until the lights are out. In the morning, they all scream their heads off until we get out of bed and go into the room they are in," the user explained.
What is it with animals and sleep rituals?? One woman's cat insists on being the one to wake her stepdaughter in the morning:
"We have a routine, I get up and go to the bathroom, brush my teeth and hair and then go let Kiki into my SD room. She runs to her bed and lays down on top of her, nuzzles around for her face and nibbles on her eyebrows to wake her up. We have to do this every morning," the woman wrote.
"It's funny how seriously they take bedtime," another user wrote. "My housemate's dog used to take himself to bed at 9pm sharp and deeply resented being carried back out to spend time with the family."
If anything, all these weird demands just make us love our pets even more. Whatever makes 'em happy!
These stories are based on posts found on Reddit. Reddit is a user-generated social news aggregation, web content rating, and discussion website where registered members submit content to the site and can up- or down-vote the content. The accuracy and authenticity of each story cannot be confirmed by our staff.
