We don’t know about you guys and gals, but we’re already just about sick of the stress of the holidays! Don’t get us wrong; we look forward to seeing our relatives and old friends, and enjoying the various festivities planned for our respective holiday celebrations. However, we are sick to death of all the insanity that surrounds the holiday season, and we need a short break!

That’s why, instead of giving you an article on “Christmas Gift Ideas” or “How to Survive the Holidays,” we have something a little different! A couple of our staff members wanted to share their cute pet stories. So, sit back, relax, and unplug from all the holiday chaos for a few moments! We hope you enjoy these tales!

My Kitten Re-Pierced My Lip!

Many of us with facial piercings have experienced suddenly (and often painfully) losing our facial jewelry. Sometimes, the jewelry gets snagged on our clothes. Other times, children or pets help us involuntarily pull the rings from our piercings. Still other times, we don’t even know what robbed us of our facial jewelry, or where, or when. In any case, it really bites when we go without those rings just long enough for the piercing to close.

Well, a friend one of our contributors (we’ll call her Alice, to protect her privacy) had a rather unique experience. The kitten Alice adopted a few years ago (which she still has and could not imagine life without!) pulled out both studs of her snake bite piercing simultaneously! The piercings were still just fresh enough that the sudden trauma caused considerable swelling, so she could not put her studs back in right away. By the time she could, the piercings had closed, and at the time she could not afford to get them re-pierced.

It gets better! Just as Alice was getting ready to give up on the idea of ever having (and successfully keeping) her snake bite piercing, her kitten did her a favor (albeit a rather painful one)! In almost the same fashion as her sweet little angel ripped out her piercings in the first place (well, in reverse, that is), he managed to do the re-piercing FOR her!

IMPORTANT NOTE: Although Alice DID put in her old studs (after cleaning both the jewelry pieces and the piercings WELL), she also went straight to her piercing specialist and had her feline piercing job examined, to ensure that no damage had been done to the tissue surrounding the piercings and that she was not in danger of any infection. Lucky for her, her kitten seemed to be born to pierce (although Alice certainly hasn’t been in any rush to test that theory further)!

My Dog Ate My Gift!

This isn’t about facial jewelry. Rather, it involves an engagement ring. Another of our contributors told us about the wild circumstances surrounding the marriage proposal from her then boyfriend. (Don’t worry; absolutely NO animals were harmed in this situation)!

Her boyfriend, “Dan,” had planted an engagement ring in a vanilla cupcake. His dog, a golden retriever named Duke, LOVED vanilla cake (WE know it’s bad for animals, but our sweet angels don’t understand that!), and could not resist an unattended, dog-sized cake.

Dan was preparing for our contributor to arrive, trying to make everything perfect for the proposal. He turned his back on the small cupcake for less than two minutes… and poof, it was gone! He saw Duke sitting by the table, licking his chops, and he groaned. He pulled out his cell phone to call his fiancé-to-be and tell her to meet him at the nearest vet’s office because he was rushing Duke there… but then, Duke opened his mouth wide and grinned, and Dan saw a brief flash of gold. He moved ever so gently toward Duke and scratched him behind the ears, so he’d open his mouth wider. He did. There, resting on one of Duke’s enormous back teeth, sat the engagement ring!

Dan carefully extracted it from his best friend’s mouth, gave Duke a treat (and a HUGE hug, relieved that his buddy had not swallowed the ring and was safe), and cleaned off the ring.

The couple (now happily married) still share many laughs about that story, with Duke sleeping comfortably between them (of course)! And, naturally, no one leaves ANY form of vanilla cake anywhere within nose shot of Mr. Duke!



Christmas Tree Climbers

About two years ago, one of our staff members got a six-week old kitten for her birthday. By Christmas that year, the kitty was barely three months old, but growing like a weed; kind of big (and strong!) for his age. He also was (and still is, she says) extremely explorative and playful, and unable to resist investigating EVERYTHING.

Knowing this in advance, our girl tossed out her old small tree and bought a taller, fuller one with built-in fiberglass lights. She retired her shiny garland, and only hung her lightweight decorations that she could secure with the faux branches of the tree.

However, she forgot a few things. First, a heavier tree (even if only marginally heavier) requires a larger, sturdier stand. Even the adjustable stands that can expand to fit around a wider-trunked tree become less stable when adjusted, and most have a limit to the weight they can reliably support. Second, it didn’t occur to her that, though her ornaments were secured and light, they still sparkled, especially when illuminated by the fiberglass tree lighting. And third, that her tiny baby was Hulk strong when he wanted to be.

Long story short, she woke to a terrible crash in the middle of night. Thinking someone had broken in, she grabbed her baseball bat and tiptoed through her apartment. There, in the middle of her living room floor, lay her brand-new tree, branches squished, ornaments shattered… and her little angel sat perched, proudly, on the overturned tree. The baby was uninjured; however, many of the gifts under the tree were crushed and broken, and the tree was irreparably damaged.

Believe it or not, buying a mini tree may be the way to go if you have tree climbers. It is, after all, in the feline nature to climb trees, and that instinct is what leads to Christmas tree catastrophes. However, they can’t climb a tree that’s as small as, or even smaller than, they are. And even if they get curious and knock it over, it’s too light to break anything beneath it, and usually stands up well against abuse and falls. Plus, with something smaller than they are (that they can’t hunt and/or eat), your cat will quickly lose interest in your baby tree, leaving it safe from destruction.

Wrapping Paper Rippers

This is one of my own experiences. I have five cats (as I think I might have mentioned in another post); the mama kitty, and her four grown babies. At the time this happened, they were less than a year old, and they were ALL fascinated with ANYTHING that made noise.

Let me start by saying that I must accept a great deal of responsibility for this incident. When they were little and first learning to play, I would ball up pieces of notebook paper and play “Paper Soccer” with them. They adored the game, and they loved playing it with each other. The paper was harmless to them, it was cheap, and we all had a blast, so it worked out great. Until, that is, they encountered paper that was much louder (and shinier) than the notebook paper.

I should also mention that I don’t wrap gifts well. At all. (This is important to explaining how they pulled off their shenanigans). That Christmas, however, I had no choice but to wrap everything myself. There were gaps between pieces of Scotch tape here, wide open corners there, and terribly tied ribbon bows everywhere. My cats had, of course, seen and heard me wrapping the gifts, and made it twice the task that may lack of wrapping talent normally would. I got it done, however, and placed the presents under the tree about a week before Christmas.

Two days later, I woke to my son shrieking (in delight) at the top of his lungs. I rushed into the room to see what was happening… and he sat amidst all of his mostly unwrapped Christmas gifts. I opened my mouth to chastise him, thinking he must have done it all himself. Then, in prances one of the kittens, a piece of ribbon in his mouth and a shred of wrapping paper stuck, unacknowledged, to his tail. Upon closer inspection, I saw the female kitten peeking at me with big eyes from behind the tree… and from underneath a pile of shredded paper. I knew immediately what had happened.

What I wish I’d known then is that it IS often possible to desensitize felines to things, no matter how visually or aurally appealing they may be. For the next year, I utilized pieces of used wrapping paper to play the soccer game with my babies. I always left balls of the paper accessible in various rooms in the house. I even let them frolic and butt in any time I tried practicing improving my gift-wrapping skills. By the following Christmas, my cats couldn’t have been more bored with the shiny, wrapped presents!

Share with Us!

Now, it’s your turn! Tell us some of your cutest, funniest and/or most interesting pet stories! We love jewelry here (obviously), but we heart fur babies of all kinds, too!