20+ Pets That Adopted Weird Habits to Manipulate Their Owners

It is said that animals take a lot after their owners. For example, communicative people have active cats and dogs, and people that don’t like company have calmer animals. Most of the time, a pet’s behavior is very easy to explain, but occasionally, their actions surprise their owners, leaving them wondering how they learned it in the first place.

We at Bright Side came across some comments from users whose pets were acting a bit weird. If you accidentally saw what these animals were doing, you’d definitely be surprised too.

• My one dog sleeps under a blanket. I know this is the only way he gets decent sleep, so every time he’s laying down I cover him with one. © RandomlyPMsCutePics / Reddit

• One day, my cat brought me a sock and it was so cute that I pet and praised him. That started a cycle and now he’s constantly bringing dirty laundry to me. © ijflwe42 / Reddit

• Upon hearing the Windows 7 sonata log-off sound, my dog jumps up and starts running around the room since I always lock my computer before leaving. And when I’m leaving, that usually means she’s going to daycare (i.e. my mom’s house). It’s been 3 years since I switched to Windows 10, but just playing the sound on YouTube still gets a reaction out of her. © TheMidnightScorpion / Reddit

• My tortoise stands on my foot when he’s hungry. © LizardPossum / Reddit

• We had a Great Dane and he had a thing. For example, you sit down to eat. The dog would see it and go to drink water. When he returned, he would aim carefully and then he would try to shake the water off his face. He would do it to make his saliva land on the plate. Guess who always ended up eating this food? © ZX204 / Pikabu

• After my roommate got a cat, my dog answers to “kitty-kitty-kitty” because he wants love and/or treats. © theothersoul / Reddit

• My cat also knows that forehead kisses are affection! When my husband pops into my home office to chat, he always kisses me on the forehead before he leaves. If our ginger cat is there, he’ll look up at my husband and squeak pathetically until he gets a kiss too. © jemmo_ / Reddit

• My rabbit has a ball where I put treats, and whenever she finds a regular ball, she pushes it around with her little, cute trunk. © babyishAuri / Reddit

• When my corn snake was a very tiny hatchling, we used to move her into her smaller hide to feed her. As a result, any time she wants food, she sits in that one hide and waits. © shiny-pebbles / Reddit

• When I was little, I would constantly carry around one of my cats, Feist. Since my hands were full with her, I would use one of her outstretched paws to turn on lights whenever we entered a room. Now the little gal switches them on and off for fun. © Kayleiighm / Reddit

• My fish is a little daredevil. If I’m pouring new water in during a water change, he will swim into the stream and get pushed down quickly and swim around to do it again until I stop pouring. I guess it must be fun for him. © Youpunyhumans / Reddit

• I used to work from home which included talking on the phone a lot. My dog would always bark when I was starting to talk to someone so I’d give her a treat to shut up, which then made her follow me around and bark anytime I put my headset on. I don’t work for that company anymore, but I keep the headset on a shelf. Now when she wants treats she’ll go over to it and bark at it and then look at me. © definitlynotddevito / Reddit

• Every morning when I wake up, I rub my dog’s belly. Now, whenever I say good morning, she will lay on her back for belly scratches. © not-whoyouthink / Reddit

• When I was a kid, I would take guitar lessons and my mom would drive me and always take our dog along. If my dog saw the guitar case, he’d get incredibly excited because he knew he would get to go for a ride. © 0rangePolarBea / Reddit

• My dog barks at any animal on the TV, so I always told him whether he could actually take on the animal or not, and he’s learned that if I tell him that a polar bear will eat him, then he shouldn’t bark at it. But if there’s a rabbit, then he’s got a shot of winning so he can keep going. Now he barks and then looks at me for approval to find out his odds before continuing. © RugbyAndDragQueens / Reddit

• When I was a teenager, my mom would ring a little bell when dinner was ready instead of calling us to come, and even though our cat was never given any treats or food, he would come to the kitchen every time he heard the bell. © Tygermouse / Reddit

• Turtles have learned that I’m going to pick them up when I wear blue gloves to clean their tank. One’s fine with it and the other one swims away at the sight of the color blue. © SyrupDip01 / Reddit

• I once fed a stray dog. He let me pet him and accompanied me to a bus stop. It happened again and again. Sometime later, I started to forget about this dog until I saw a pile of poop next to my house. I buried the poop into the ground. A week later, I saw poop again. I don’t know why but I thought it was the dog leaving me messages. As an experiment, I left some food for him and went to work. When I came back, I saw that the food was gone and the poop was buried. So now, if I see the dog, he runs to me and accompanies me, and if we don’t meet, he leaves me a message. © n0sferatu / Pikabu

• I take baths with my cat by letting her float in a plastic box. I keep the box in my closet. I only started doing this about a month ago, but now when I turn the bathwater on, she runs to the closet and jumps in her box. © aquickcupofcoffee / Reddit

• My budgie had a broken leg in a little splint. He would climb to the roof of his cage with just his beak and his good leg before letting go with his beak, hanging by one leg and just staring at me. He knew I would stick my hand in and he could just fall off into my hand. He only did this when I was around because I was the only one who would stick my hand in. © spaceship4parakeet / Reddit

• My cat knows that I will scratch his chin when he wants me to. So when I’m working, I see that he visits me for some scratches. I wasn’t looking, stretched my arm out, and started scratching but I felt it wasn’t his chin. I looked at the cat and realized that he was trying to yawn and I scratched the inside of his mouth. © Nettero / Pikabu

• My niece loves to FaceTime my mom to talk to her dog. When the dog was a puppy, my mom used to pull her onto her lap when she would get a FaceTime call. Now the dog is 80 lb and will jump in your lap if your phone or tablet starts making the default FaceTime ring. © bb_or_not_bb / Reddit

Do your pets have any unusual habits? Tell us about them in the comment section below!