Dog and cat owners are constantly amused by their quirky four-legged besties.
And while we are as captivated as dogs chasing their tails and cats determinedly chasing after that evasive laser point, pet owners can witness quite a show when an uninvited animal enters the domestic environment.
So what happens in those unusual circumstances?
Lucky for us, we don't have to wonder, thanks to a subReddit that addressed the very subject confirming we are merely spectators really living in the animal kingdom.
Plenty of interesting anecdotes filled the thread when Redditor 99_Restaurant asked:
"People whose homes have dog/cat doors, have wild animals ever entered your pet doors and what happened when that occurred?"
Things went bananas with these intruders.
Monkey Pause
"Not quite a pet door situation but we lived close to the national park in Nairobi. On several occasions monkeys would come into the house through the windows."
"They'd raid the pantry and make a mess of it. Once my husband was home alone. He heard a noise downstairs and as he went to investigate met a monkey coming back upstairs. They both froze, then he backed up back into the bedroom and the monkey made its way back out through our child's bedroom window."
"It was quite a hoot."
– Amantes09
Knock, Knock–Who's There?
"Also not OP but some years ago I stayed in a wildlife area in Ghana. The lodge warned us not to open the door without checking the peephole first because the baboons had learned to knock on doors and if you opened they would rush inside and tear apart the room looking for food! They really did knock too! If not for the warning I might have opened the door. Pretty freaky."
– ExcellentBurps
You'd think woodland creatures were cute.
What The Cat Missed
"I lived in an apartment that backed up to an open field for a while and had a real raccoon issue. Once they figured out that the cat door was occasionally open after I left it open one night when was out late, they would show up in a gang of 5-7 every night and bang in the slider and try it get in."
"The apartment was a studio with a slightly lofted bedroom and one evening was sitting on the couch working and saw what thought was my cat wander down into the living room and hop up on to the couch next to me. I reached out to give her a scratch and noticed in my periphery that her body language was off. That was when I turned to look at her and realized it was a raccoon. I screamed and lept off the couch. The raccoon made a quick exit back out the cat door. My cat slept through the whole exchange."
– BraveLittleEcho
A Staring Contest
"A squirrel came in through my parents cat flap (they don't have a cat but didn't replace the door when they bought the house). I remember walking into the kitchen and having a staring match with this squirrel until he decided he'd had enough and left the way he'd come in. Not very exciting but still."
– yellowteapots
No Exit Strategy
"Squirrels can be pure madness sometimes, so it might very well have been."
"We had a squirrel get in through a hole in the screen door once. She couldn't figure out how to get back out so she ping ponged around the room for a bit, knocking over a bunch of stuff."
– PlasticElfEars
The Cat's Guests
"Kind of similar, I guess…"
"I once walked into the kitchen and noticed that our horse had gotten inside. He had opened a cupboard in the mud room and was happily munching away on some chaff we had stored there. The pull down handle to the back door was covered in horse slobber, as was the cubboard door handle. Cheeky bugger."
"Also, one of our cats has brought in the odd snake. They are very much alive when she deposits them inside the house. Luckily, she usually chooses to leave them in the bath for some reason."
– hummingbirdpie
Chilly Reception
"I live in the countryside in the UK, and I’ve got a load of marshes behind my house, so we get all sorts, bugs, birds, small mammals (foxes, hedgehogs, etc) and amphibians. One day, my cat was meowing at me, and she led me behind the sofa, and she had brought in a whole adult rabbit that was frozen solid. I was shocked because she had to have brought it over several walls 7 feet high, and through the cat flap, and the rabbit was more than half the size of her. The most concerning thing, however, is that I thought it was a duck until my sister came down and saw it and pointed out it was a rabbit. It was because it was so frozen solid and the ears were covered in ice and stuck together, so it looked like a ducks beak. Yeah idk how I thought it was a duck at first."
– CrazyCalamari86
Indoor Outhouse
"A fox pissed on my couch."
– mekese2000
Winged creatures need shelter too. They just don't understand boundaries unless they're the ones that are spooked.
Permanent Landing
"Came down one morning to find a peacock in the utility room that had got in to eat all the cat food. It stayed on our property for about three years and we called it Wazzock."
– TouchMySwollenFace
Special Delivery
"One morning, there was a noise at my door. I opened it and there was a peacock standing on my stoop like the UPS guy. He squawked and flew into a tree."
“At God is my witness, I thought peacocks couldn’t fly.”
– substantial-freud
"Greedy Bastard"
"Similar. After our cat brought in live mice, small birds, a giant moth and a couple of slow worms, we nixed the cat flap. We do keep the patio door open during summer."
"We have a seagull (European herring gull) that has been cruising in our negbourhood for about ten years now. He knows where the cat food is, so each summer he just wanders in and has a nice serving. Greedy b@stard."
"There was also the one late summer evening when the door was open, and I suddenly heard crunching sounds. I walked over to investigate, and a badger was just sitting there, munching on some bug or other about ten feet from the open door."
– Sticky16
These wild anecdotes sure will make you reconsider getting a cat flap.
From an animal's perspective, the tiny-sized openings of a human home are basically house-warming invitations.
Have you experienced any wild intrusions?
And are you one to welcome such visitors, or are you prone to standing on top of your kitchen chair for safety?
