cats and dogs

I had a pet cat named Pippy, we got him when I was a kitten, and I remember I used to think that he would grow up into an adult, and the two of us would get married. I imagined him all dressed up and standing on two feet like Puss 'n Boots. I guess I thought his walking on four legs was similar to babies crawling.

Alison

When I was a child, I told my parents that I wanted a French poodle because I believed that it would bark in French.

Marie

Once I was playing at my friend Corey's house and his dog was following us around the yard. I wanted the dog to play fetch like on cartoons, but he was only interested in the stick if I held it, so I let him chew on it.
Corey looked over and screamed, "Stop feeding sticks to my dog! He's a robot dog and you'll jam up his gears!"
When I said I didn't believe him he said, "Oh yeah? Well if he's not a robot dog, then why do I have to feed him battery acid?"
I believed him, and when the dog was hit by a car a few months later, I knew my sticks were the REAL reason he died.

Kendra

As a kid I was always very impressed with people in Quebec who had such well trained dogs. After all, it has to be doubly difficult to teach a dog to obey commands in a foreign language such as French. I was also a bit jealous that the dogs understood more French than I did. (I was about 11 when I figured that one out.)

mags

When I was around four to six years old, I thought that if you were petting an animal and didn't wash your hands before you ate something, you'd turn into that animal. I was always too scared to test this though, because I wasn't quite sure I wanted to spend the rest of my life as a cat or a dog...

Silly girl

When I was five, I decided that cats needed haircuts just like people. I grabbed some scissors, crawled under the dining room table, and cut all of my cat's whiskers off. I wasn't allowed to used scissors for two months.

katie B

My son used to call Dalmatians - at the age of thirty-three still does call them, in fact - Raisin Dogs. It was only recently that I asked him why: he had believed that they were made of flour, with raisins stuck in them.

Peter Firth

I believed that when a cat ate a mouse, the mouse went to live in the cats tail. How else did the the tip of the cats tail move so seemingly independent from the rest of the cat? And that would explain why the cats liked to chase their tale!

Ness

when my dad was little boy his older sister told him that their cats nose was made out of rubber. he believed her without question until the day he tried to rub out a mistake in his jotter and got his arm lacerated by the cats claws and teeth.

el

When I was little I thought that if I slept in the bed with my male cat, Rusty, I would get pregnant, and that I would have kittens. I thought my mom would be really mad at me.

My mom would watch a lot of soaps and they always said so-and-so was "sleeping" with so-and-so, and got pregnant. Everybody seemed really mad about that. So, I thought sleeping in the bed with my cat would make me prego... and I wanted to have more kitties!

Rachel

Having seen the testicals on my neighbour's large short-haired dog, I was convinced that that was were dogs kept the cores of any apples they had eaten.

Mike B.

I was always told that if the dog was wagging its tail, it was happy and friendly. If the cat is switching its tail, it was agitated and likely to scratch. I tested this explanation by forcing our happy dog's wagging still. It very quickly became unhappy and bit me. Voila! The adults were right. So, naturally, the next step would be to force the cat's switching tail to hold still and it would be happy... the results weren't what I was expecting.

Tokeca

I was about four when i decided that my cat's whiskers hurt her like quills stuck in her face. She was quite unhappy when I cut them off to make her more comfortable. . . .

Tandy

I used to believe that if a cat didn't have a little patch of white fur under their chin, they wouldn't be able to purr. My father called it "purr-fur" and whenever we met a new cat, he would show me where the white fur was (not always visible to my eyes) and then tickle the cat until it purred.

Kitty

My 11 year old son is pretty smart-- he's on the honor roll at school-- but until recently he thought cats could understand English. He was very concerned that when I called one our cats a "reprehensible quadruped" it would hurt her feelings.

Tom in Atlanta

I had a really smart dog, Sandy, a Sheltie. She knew when you were going to take her for a walk, recognized the words "go for a walk," and that kind of thing. She really was a great and intelligent girl. But she couldn't actually speak. That's where I was incorrect. I would spend an hour or so maybe once a week, after school, alone in the house with Sandy, pleading with her to chat with me, and often promised that I would protect her, and never let them give her a lobotomy. She held out. I'm still not convinced, though.

Ambrosia

When we were kids, my grandmother told us that dogs attracted lightning, so she wouldn't let us bring the dog in when it stormed. We were terrified our dog would be hit by a lightning bolt, so we would stage a commando mission where some of us distracted Nanny while the others smuggled our 80lb Irish Setter into the bedroom closet. Good thing there were 5 kids in the family or our dog might have been toast!

Michele Ellington

When we were young, my father didn't allow us to have animals since we travelled a lot. Well the first time we were able to get a cat, my little brother was sitting on my mom's lap, holding that little kitten. He sat there and rubbed its fur for a few minutes. Then all of a sudden he jumped, picked up the kitten, and held it to his ear and exclaimed, "Mom! This cat has a motor inside!" He believed that for a very long time!

Big Sis

I used to believe that dogs heads were used to make drums. This stemmed from the fact i once found a plastic Drum beater. And my dog. And found that the dogs head made a pleasing sound.

I asked my mum, "Are drums made from dogs heads", and she said yes. She says she thought i was kidding, but i believed it for years.

Duffman

Because of the family film, I thought that Beethoven was a dog. I once found a book in my kindergarten classroom featuring pictures of "Beethoven's violin" and "Beethoven's piano" and I wondered how a dog could possibly have a violin.

Kitty Kat