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It's a common scene in the movies. The family leaves the kitchen or dining room unguarded, distracted by some meaningful event, such as a proposal, death, natural disaster or mental breakdown - whatever constitutes "meaningful" in the movies these days - and returns to find most of dinner missing and Fido licking his chops on the floor.
Unless you have a big dog with quick reflexes, it's more likely that your pup or your cat will snag a bite or two of food than a whole meal. And just about everyone who has owned an animal has caught them red-pawed at one time or another. Now, that's not my kitten in the picture and I probably would have shooed him away before thinking to snap a photo, but that is an extremely cute shot that brings up the question of what "people foods" do your pets tend to go for when they have the chance?
Personally, I've had a cat that would go for macaroni and cheese if I wasn't looking and neighbor whose dog would watch for unguarded egg dishes (making brunch a tricky meal to enjoy).
I'll be keeping a closer eye out the next time I make waffles, just in case.
[image via cute overload]
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10-18-2006 @12:44PM Ozymandia said... I have a cat who gets so aggressive about marshmallows we've had to ban them from the house.
She got her first taste of them when we were making hot chocolate, and one fell to the floor and she got to it before us. Since then, any marshmallows within smelling distance are hunted and fought for. The ban came after some near misses with full mugs of hot hot chocolate.
She will eat almost anything, really. She also goes after fruit (excepting citrus), a wide range of veggies, anything that's milk or soymilk based, and, of course, meats. Common dinnertime entertainment is to try to catch the little black paw from under the table before it hits a dinner plate. ;)
My other cat, her brother, refuses to go near people food at all. We're debating if we were told the truth about them being from the same litter.
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10-18-2006 @1:06PM Chris Finke said... Any Italian food. A couple months after we got our puppy Pedro, he managed to eat in the span of one week: a half-pan of lasagna, a foil-wrapped loaf of garlic bread (but not the foil), and an entire pan of cheese bread. As far as I can tell, he felt fine - didn't throw up, didn't seem out of sorts, but he throws up his dogfood if we switch brands...
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10-18-2006 @1:12PM Jenny said... My mom once owned a horse who would silently go over a persons shoulder to nab potato chips and cans of Pepsi. He was very careful and gentle about how he took these things from you, but it was still a good idea to be careful eating chips around him!
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10-18-2006 @1:15PM Dashin said... Chocolate is bad for dogs, but it doesn't keep them from wanting it. My wife had on of those huge boxes of chocolate that you get to sell for fundraisers. Somehow our blind schauzer (Lexie) got into it. I found the wrappers of 2 huge bars all over the living room. Lexie seemed happy as a clam, with chocolate breath of course. I don't think I could have eaten that much!!
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10-18-2006 @1:54PM Wade said... Caesar Salad
Bread with butter, dog will not eat plain bread
Jambalaya
Any form of pasta
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10-18-2006 @1:23PM squawky said... The weirdest food I've seen pets eat were lima beans: when I was a kid, we put a bowl down in the kitchen to tease our cats...who promptly ate up every bean (we guessed either there was butter on the beans, or the cats were gobbling up the food just to keep it away from the others).
One of said cats was also brazen enough to steal a piece of bacon off of my breakfast plate while I was eating...she didn't even bother to run away with it, just ate it right there on the counter. Attitude.
Met the hungry horses too -- knew one who would try to eat anything he could get to (edible or not - chips, chocolate, lead ropes, watches, fingers, whatever). He went through the garbage at a horse show once and came out with sugar packets from someone's coffee. My current horsey buds prefer peppermints, not paper!
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10-18-2006 @1:50PM geekpdx said... My cats won't touch fish unless it's canned tuna or raw salmon - but they'll swoop in and grab any sort of cold lunchmeat they can find, even if it's nestled inside a sandwich.
They'll also lick the beer out of the rim of a beer can if you let your guard down.
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10-18-2006 @4:32PM Jeff said... I have a cat that goes insane for cantalope melon and kalamata olives. He is ravenous for these things. Also, he's way less enthusiastic about the melon when it's not really sweet and ripe... he has good taste.
I'm very careful not to let him get olives because I don't want him sneaking one and possibly swallowing a pit. But he'll rub his face and lick your fingers if you have so much as touched an olive.
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10-18-2006 @3:58PM BDW said... Most of my ferrets would eat anything they could steal, and they would steal anything light enough to muscle away. They would kill for grapes. The best was when one stole a jalapeno chile, bit into it, hissed in rage and pain, dropped it, bit it again and shook it like a mouse, then hissed again, dropped it, and began her war dance around it, attacking ferociously and rikki-tikki-ing as if it were alive. By this time we were all ROTFLing, and she finally killed it and then stole an unattended shrimp.
Another would steal used artichoke leaves and run just out of reach, daring us to try to take them away from her.
They would also drink beer from a glass, but it never seemed to make any difference in the way they acted.
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10-18-2006 @2:09PM nick said... I've got a cat who insists on sniffing every piece of food that I eat -- but won't eat any of it. When he was a kitten, he would occasionally eat small pieces of sharp cheese, but nowadays he just sniffs them and turns his nose up.
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10-18-2006 @2:21PM Kate said... My brother in law's dog loves any kind of bread product, but has learned to "ask for it." If he manages to find any bread or rolls, or sneaks a piece, he'll trot over and put it on my brother in law's knee, or, drop it at his feet, and whine and look pleadingly at him until he says the dog can have it. Then the dog snarfs down the bread.
My boss's cat loves all fruit and will delicately extend a paw with razor sharp claws to spear a grape off a cluster, tug gently to free the grape, and then eat said grape of his one extended claw.
My own cats' favorite shared food were dragonflys. A delicacy, although not human food. They thought it should be because they often captured a dragonfly, brought it inside, and dropped it on my plate for my consumption.
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10-18-2006 @2:34PM Jennifer said... My cats love meat, of course, but also any salty foods they can get, whole wheat bread products, and one of them also tries to steal the veggie lasagna. No, she's not fat or orange. Might be the ricotta, I don't know.
The worst is when they get into the feta; their gas is a form of hazardous waste after that.
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10-18-2006 @3:00PM Marjie Bishop said... My Siamese, Koko, loved corn on the cob. He would hold it down with a paw on each end and nibble the kernels in a neat row.
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10-18-2006 @3:05PM Dawgen said... My crazy dog also loves frozen lima beans, which is great because I hate those frozen mixed vegetables that always contains lima beans. I just throw them on the floor of the kitchen and Captain Ahab, our 6.5 year old ridgeback mix just wolfs them up like they were candy. Captain also has the ability to debunk the MYTH that you can't feed a dog chicken bones. I can feed him an entire HALF CHICKEN that has been bbq'd and his massive super-strong jaws break the chicken bones up like you or I could break a peanut shell...Good thing he never uses his jaws/teeth for anything but eating and shredding the occasional comforter!
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10-18-2006 @3:29PM liz said... I think I'm the only person in the world who has a cat that doesn't care for people food. Even if I give him a little tuna, he looks at me in confusion with an expression of "Um...is this okay?" but I was pretty strict about not letting him eat people food, especially as a kitten.
He's also very picky about cat food. Purina Indoor Cat formula for him, hands down.
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10-18-2006 @5:43PM Beth said... We have 3 cats here at our large home but the kitten, solid black Figaro, seems to be the BIGGEST glutton I have EVER seen in a cat...
He LOVES bread products--when he was a tiny TEENSY kitten and we had just gotten him--just barely bigger than my hand, he wolfed down a jumbo chocolate chip muffin I was planning on sharing with my daughter--then to wash it down, he was gulping my Mike's Hard Lemoade. I thought he'd be sick as his stomach was so-o-o distended, but no, he burped and went in further pursuit of what was to eat @ this new home (we had just gotten him from the Shelter). And the way he eats--WHEW! Like a dog, mouth wide open, gulping and snarfing like noone would ever feed him again!
Ya gotta love the little guy who is as sleek and thin as can be, when he is stalking ANY and EVERYTHING for Figaro's consumption.
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10-18-2006 @4:39PM dragonet2 said... I used to have a dog that would not let you alone if you were eating an orange. She'd sit and stare longingly, and if ignored, a paw would appear on your leg, then she'd lay her head on your leg (drooling all the while) and she'd gently try and just take it if you continued to ignore her (she was a Great Dane, so sitting she was face level with me if I was sitting). She usually got 1/4 to 1/2 an orange.
Now I have cats that except for one, the only fish they like is the smelliest tuna cat food. The one, though, has good taste. He likes pork, canned tuna and especially most of all bacon. He'll also drink out of your water glass if you leave it where he can get it (we've taken to using c-store cups with lids....).
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10-18-2006 @6:58PM Steve Barron said... Apart from the obvious meat-, cheese- and milk-related foods, my cat LOVES:
- Potato Chips: especially Pringle's Right Crisps
- Doritos: he even eats the corn chips after he's licked the cheese off
- Oreo "creme" filling
- Tomato Products: ketchup, tomato sauce, including the sauces that come in Chef Boyardee Ravioli and Spaghetti-os
Hmm, looking at that list, what did I just reveal about my *own* eating habits? ;)
When I moved apartments a few years ago, he hid in the bathroom for the first several hours. I made myself a Stouffer's Macaroni and Cheese for dinner. I guess that made the new apartment smell like home because he stopped hiding after that!
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10-18-2006 @4:35PM Paul said... My cat loves peanut butter. Give him a fingerful and he will lick it off, then clean himself for an hour.
He's also been known to steal a salmon skin off of a visiting guest's dinner plate.
Other things he loves... chicken broth (you open a can and he'll run over, meow and then look at you with big, hungry eyes until you give him a plateful) and paté baguette sandwiches (picture he and I doing a "Lady and the Tramp" thing... each of us eating the sandwich from opposite ends).
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10-18-2006 @4:59PM Jeremy said... My dog, Muldoon, is nuts for beer. Any and every kind, although in a taste test he went for watery domestics over the bitter IPAs I prefer.
He also will eat just about anything. There are a few raw veggies he'll skip over but for the most part, anything.
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