We don't feed Bubba (cat) people food, but he gets a sample here and there, plus he steals. Last night my husband came to bed nibbling on two pieces wheat bread. Bubba was curious, and my husband isn't against sharing, so he let him have a bite. The cat came back for a second and third. The fourth time he just grabbed the bread out of hubby's hands and took off. I knew there was a reason he was born with a mask around his eyes!

Other foods he's theived include an egg mcmuffin once and he has a weakness for mexican food.

Nicole Hollowood

To a dog, you're family. To a cat, you're staff.

[E-mail address edited by Beth because it was bouncing, 5/24/00.]

-- Anonymous, May 21, 2000

Answers

I kidnapped my cats from their feral mother and I think because they used to be feral they'll eat just about anything. They're pretty aggressive about it too, I remember having to construct elaborate barriers of a newspaper, the cereal box and a jug of milk just to eat my cereal. They like popcorn, potato chips, dog food, ice cream, cheese, and chinese food.

-- Anonymous, May 21, 2000

Our dog Fluffy had a special fondness for ice cream. Don't know if that's weird or not, but that's what she liked. Indeed, she would eat anything except dog food. The only time we could ever get her to eat actual dog food was once when the vet gave us some special food vets sell that had chicken in it. Chicken was her other great love.

-- Anonymous, May 22, 2000

Several years ago, I had a cat that would try anything. She wasn't allowed people food, but was a good thief. The give away was that every time she had eaten anything other than cat food, she would lick her lips (??do cats have lips).

The most memorable occassion was on a Sunday afternoon. We were watching tv and she strolled into the living room. Her tongue was quickly cleaning up any extra taste of the lasted steal. When I went into the dining room, there was one bowl left on the table from lunch. A bowl of turnips. Yech!

-- Anonymous, May 22, 2000

George eats bread and ice cream too.

But his favorite is caramels. He'll go nuts if he knows I'm eating one. I make little, itty bitty balls of the candy and he eats it like its his last supper. But he still can't eat a whole one.

Mostly he just likes to smell what I'm eating. Rarely does he actually eat it. And he doesn't like cat treats - isn't that weird? I've tried all different types, but he just likes his regular food. If only his owner were so inclined!

-- Anonymous, May 22, 2000

Our George Cat loves ice cream. He'll try to climb up on you to get it if he discovers you have it. But that's not very strange.

Our other cat isn't very interested in people food - that's a little strange.

-- Anonymous, May 22, 2000

Carrot juice, carrots, peach juice, mashed potatoes and tortilla chips have all been stolen at various times from plates/glasses.

-- Anonymous, May 22, 2000

Cricket loves loves LOVES the leaves off broccoli and cauliflower. Not the florets, mind you, just the leaves. If I so much as set one toe in the kitchen, she comes charging in, chirping non-stop, hoping against all feline hope that there's broccoli in the fridge. She'll also yank corn husks out of the trash. Weird little cat.

-- Anonymous, May 22, 2000

My dog is a total veggie-nut just like her parents. Whenever I'm chopping anything in the kitchen, she comes running in and sits at my feet in hopes of ANYTHING rolling off the cutting board: carrots, leeks, fennel, onions, broccoli.

The funniest, though, had to be the time we had just gotten finished putting away groceries one Sunday afternoon. I hadn't realized that a mango I put in the fruit basket had rolled out and onto the floor. And there was Sienna, our pup, walking around with a mango in her mouth like it was a ball.

-- Anonymous, May 22, 2000

Well, Calli-chicken is A.'s cat, and you can tell because she loves any type of junk food. Chips of all sorts, flavoured popcorn, ice cream or peanut butter & jam sandwiches will have her crawling up your leg for bits.

William is a gourmet, an elegant cat of taste and discernment, and he likes nearly everything. Cheese is his favourite, and he can hear the rustle of cheese-containing Saran from anywhere in the house, especially the kind that comes from the yuppie gourmet store. He also likes roasted vegetables (even garlic) and green grapes, although the latter (mighty hunter) he cannot dismember by himself and we need to crush them for him. He once stole a whole breast of extra spicy Tandoori chicken from my very plate, before I was vegetarian. I pursued him down the hall, but before I caught him he gave a sudden snort of dismay, dropped it and ran for the water bowl. That was the last thing he ever stole from a plate.

Zozo likes fresh bread and cake. She'll grab it from your fingers, clutching your arm in her paws. Grimmy thinks that if you change his diet in any way, it's the signal that his days are numbered. I'm glad I don't have any more cats. I think there's no such thing as a normal cat.

-- Anonymous, May 22, 2000

Our cat Lucy loves sour cream and onion potaato chips. She was first attracted by the smell of them, so Charlie gave her a tiny piece. Once she tasted it she was hellbent on more, so she climbed right up Charlie's chest and stole one from between his lips. It cracked us up!

-- Anonymous, May 23, 2000

My cat Max *loves* rice cakes. He'll eat pretty much any bread product, but he seems to like the crunchiness of the rice cakes. It can't be the taste, now, can it? He is also obsessed with marshmallows, to the extent of climbing on top of total strangers to get at them.

-- Anonymous, May 23, 2000

When Monster was a kitten, he stole a Montreal bagel from the kitchen counter, dragged it to the living room, and hid it under the coffee table where he hid all his treasures. I saw him goofing around under the table one day, and there was one of my precious bagels with kitty- cat bite marks out of it. To this day I don't know how he got it there.

Butterscotch used to like pickles, but she won't eat them now. She's rather picky, and she doesn't eat a lot of people food. She likes salty stuff, like chips and crackers.

-- Anonymous, May 23, 2000

My dog Cisco is not allowed to eat any people food, so we make an effort to keep all the "good smelling" stuff away from him. He usually doesn't care to beg for veggies and other "good for you" foods because their isn't much of a mouth watering smell. Imagine our suprise when we thought we'd misplaced a bag of tomatoes, and discovered that he found em and gobbled them up to the last bit!

guess he taught us a lesson...

-Zhyla

-- Anonymous, May 23, 2000

Our two cats have distinctively different people food likes. Eeyore will try anything -- from dairy, seafood and meat, which he loves, to mexican and chinese dishes, which he also loves. He will literally lick a plate covered in pasta sauce clean. And, if he hears the sound of a spoon in a bowl, he zips to whomever has it and will sit and stare at them until they finish and offer the last drips and drabs of milk, ice cream, etc. to him. And he will finish it. Winnie, on the other hand, is more picky. He will only eat ice cream if it is offered to him on a spoon ("what, and stick my head in that bowl so my whiskers get all sticky??"), will only drink water after it's gone thorugh a filter or been sitting stagnant in the road for a few days (but straight from the faucet is definitely out), and LOVES McDonalds and Burger King sandwiches. When he sees the bag, he just sits next to it and waits for his human to come share. I think he;d even eat the fries if we let him.

-- Anonymous, May 23, 2000

My parents' cats have always been strange. The late Heather used to have a thing for french fries and donuts. She'd open a donut container and take one out and eat it. Misty likes donuts, but she's not so assertive; my dad has to give her bits of them. Now all he has to do is yell, "Donuts!" and the cat comes running. Spanky's the strangest of them, though.. she likes ritz crackers, pea soup, and chocolate pudding (the last strictly limited out of chocolate-is-bad- for-cats-and-dogs-isn't-it worry). She knows these specific foods and goes nuts whenever anyone's eating them in the house. She loves to lick out the pea soup can. Freak. She also likes Dinty Moore beef stew and liverwurst, but those are fairly normal.

My own cat, Moly, absolutely refuses to touch human food. If I offer her a bit of meat or a smidgin of whatever, she assumes I'm trying to pet her, and rubs her head happily against my hand. If I set human food on the floor and point to it, she obediently sniffs, and then looks confused (that won't pet me!). She will not drink milk. I have never seen her consume anything but Authority brand lamb and rice catfood, in the past year and a half. And she still gets excited when I fill her dish. I think she's the biggest freak of all.

-- Anonymous, May 24, 2000

Doc isn't allowed to have people food, except for carrots and popcorn and the occasional piece of cheese. Carrots turned out to be great chew toys when he was teething because they were much cheaper than dog toys and not likely to cause intestinal obstructions. I've had to cut him off of baby carrots, though, because he begs whenever I eat them. I can't stand begging. I will occasionally give him one if he leaves me alone and doesn't beg, though.

He doesn't really like popcorn, but he likes to catch it. When I make popcorn, we have a few minutes of popcorn fetching before he gets bored and wanders off.

He would sell his soul for peanut butter, but I don't want him to get fat. He steals squash out of the garden, but I don't care very much.

The cats are all different. Benny doesn't like human food except for green olives and fish. (All of my cats like green olives, in fact, and will steal them out of the jar if you leave it open -- they will also steal the pits out of the trash.) Sally likes all human food ... except for fish. She's a freak. She'll climb on to the fridge and get in the cupboards, ripping open packages to eat moldy bread, bagels, Peeps (or whatever those awful marshmallow candies are called), and especially cinnamon cookies. I think it's her alley cat past.

Rudy is the weirdest, though. Like all the feral cats at my parents' place, he will eat fruits and vegetables, especially cantelope rind. He also likes bleu cheese, red wine (not white wine, although he can appreciate the bubbles in champagne, and not the cheap stuff -- Rudy disapproves of anything that costs less than $10 a bottle), anything spicy, pepperoni, asparagus, and whole wheat cereal (no milk).

I thought of having Rudy do restaurant reviews at one point (i.e., writing about his reaction to the doggie bag), because he generally has very good taste. He doesn't like cheap food, bland food, greasy food, or anything boring. He will, however, eat dry dog food, but that's just to piss off the dog.

-- Anonymous, May 24, 2000

My cat Gremmy doesn't eat any people food at all. She's rather fussy about kibble changes, too.

The other two both scream for cottage cheese, but that's about the only people food that interests Mina.

Mharnu likes bread (especially the spelt bread that one of my housemates used to make), yogurt, cheese, sweet corn, seasoned tofu, and of course any fish, chicken, and vegetarian faux meat things. He will beg for anything that I'm eating, and unless I let him have a sniff he just keeps on whining. At one place where I lived a few years ago, cats were allowed to sit on the table while people were eating, and Mharnu would sit next to me at the table and steal food off my plate if I wasn't careful.

One of the other cats we lived with during that time would do just about anything for asparagus. He'd often get up on the counter where asparagus was being prepared, steal a stalk, and tear off to one of his secret places to devour it. Finally his owners just started giving him a little bowl of chopped-up asparagus whenever they were having some.

I grow a little pot of rye grass for my cats and they love it. Keeps them off the houseplants, too.

-- Anonymous, May 24, 2000

My older cat, Igor, has never been allowed people food, and has never displayed much interest in it, except he loves tomato sauce or ketchup. If a plate is left out with anything tomato-y on it, you can be sure Igor will find his way to it and lick up as much as he can.

My younger cat, Vinnie, came to me at 6 months, and made his taste for potato chips immediatly known by swiping at my hand when I stuck it into a bag of chips. He will sometimes eat a plain chip, but more often, he just steals them and runs off as if he's committed a big heist. Same with other food. Once I left a plate with a slice of pizza on it in his reach, and I saw him pull it off the plate, drag it across the table, then down onto the carpet and across the living room. He didn't eat it, he just stole it, drug it off and left it there. He will do the same with eggshells left in his reach, and any kind of greens.

Strange ani-mules!

-- Anonymous, May 24, 2000

My parents have a cat who likes to lick peppermint flavored lifesavers. He doesn't eat them, just licks them, then walks away, leaving behind a slightly gooey mess.

My kitten, Cricket, doesn't seem to have any overly unusual tastes thus far, but then i haven't had her all that long. We'll see.

One of the funniest things i ever saw involved my iguana Henry and a big bowl of guacamole. He was sitting on my shoulder, then he looked down at the table and promptly leapt straight into the bowl and started sucking it down. I was so overcome by laughter that he managed to get a significant amount into his stomach before i was able to retrieve him. I think he learned his lesson though because the spices made his mouth hot i guess - he stuck his tongue out (and it was a bit puffy) and he panted for awhile. Still, i was extra careful with guacamole around him from then on. Good thing i was done with it by that time.

-- Anonymous, May 24, 2000

Zhyla: When we got our Shih Tzu, Gizmo, about 5 years ago, my mom read up and discovered that dogs LOVE tomatoes. They go nuts over them. So I guess that would explain that one.

My dog will eat anything. Absolutely anything. He likes milk, bread, veggies, cereal, noodles, french fries. We never feed him large quantities of anything, but he goes nuts over the smallest morsels. He also used to have a problem with eating...uh...his own by-products, yet he never eats mushrooms. I'm always more shocked over what he doesn't eat than what he does. Crazy dog, I tell ya.

-- Anonymous, May 24, 2000

melon. my cats adore cantaloupe.

-- Anonymous, May 24, 2000

My childhood dog, a cocker spaniel, loved salad. We couldn't make salad without him sitting on our feet begging. We had to give him scraps of lettuce, celery, carrots and whatnot.

Actually, I don't think he really liked the stuff, he was just jealous because we gave salad scraps to the guinea pig. If the guinea pig got lettuce, he was going to get it too!

He also ate apples. Very strange dog.

-- Anonymous, May 24, 2000

Our fatass cat, whose name is Snoopy but we always call him "Tubby" ate half a bowl of collard greens once.

While we eat dinner every night, he lays on his back near the table, making "I'm starving to death!" grumbles under his breath.

-- Anonymous, May 24, 2000

New foods that cropped up today:

Whole wheat bread and ginger ale.

I'm sick and just getting back on solid foods and my cats went HOG WILD for the whole wheat bread I was nibbling on in bed.

I mean, they were acting like it was catnip or something.

Weird little nimmals.

-- Anonymous, May 24, 2000

When I was in high school, our family cat, Figgy, was crazy for marshmallows. He had six toes on each front foot and picked up his food in his "hand" to eat it. We'd cut up the marshmallows into 'bites' and he'd put one in his mouth and chew mightily. As the white sticky bits went to his back teeth, he'd use his "index" claw to scrape the bits back to his front teeth, then suck the sticky off that claw and keep chewing. It was very funny to watch. He'd eat 2 or 3 whole marshmallows like this--took him about an hour.

-- Anonymous, May 25, 2000

My dog -- Bandit -- Loves anything he can get his lips around. He loves cake, my son made a cake and one day we went out and left the cake on the table, when we got back half the cake was gone. We could not remember if we cut it because it was so neatly eaten. He eats grapes, tomatos, Doritos popcorn corn on the cob virtually any thing and oh yea we have to keep him out of the strawberry patch he'll eat those too.

-- Anonymous, May 25, 2000

My cat Riley will eat anything i'm eating. Anything. Pizza, Pasta, loves mint chocolate chip ice cream and especially loves yogurt. He howls if I don't give him every other spoonful. He loves hot spicy things, and then his eyes glaze over and he opens his mouth a little after he finishes eating it. Szechuan chicken, you name it. Sassy likes only diary products and deli ham, and Oliver will not even glance at people food. He just looks at me like I'm insane.

-- Anonymous, May 25, 2000

"Ritz" (20 pounds, 24 toes, orange cat) used to enjoy avocados, artichokes and root beer floats. "Claws" (large water turtle) loves sliced turkey, shrimp, pork chops and garden snails.

-- Anonymous, May 25, 2000

Two main thingsour cats love beside the normal stuff. Onyx will rip a Nacho Cheese Dorito right out of your hand or even mouth if he can sneak up on you. Its cheesy so understandable. The really odd one is cantalope. Its the only food the three will actually hiss, spit, and fight over with each other.

-- Anonymous, May 25, 2000

My boyfriend's dog's favorite food was yogurt-covered raisins. My cat, Footfoot eats raw dough (like bisquick mixed with water) and licks Ben- Gay type medicine off you. Our other cat, another Cricket, eats only cat food and tries to cover up any stong foods (he covers it up by sratching imaginary kitty litter over it.)

-- Anonymous, June 01, 2000

ok, so we had this cat which we didn't feed people food but... well on three different occasions she turned up with a cooked roast chicken...our neighbors were...unthrilled

-- Anonymous, June 01, 2000

I try to feed my cats the good cat food, but they usually snub their little noses at it and go for discarded hair ties, crumpled up credit card slips, and the laces of my Doc's. Ever seen a hairball with hair ties in it? Ick.

-- Anonymous, June 02, 2000

Lucy (the cat) loves gumdrops. Not only are they a great treat, they're also a fantastic source of entertainment. She bats them around for a long time before actually consuming them. She also likes Fritos, rice, any kind of chicken, and seasoned vegatables.

This isn't actually a "food" story, but... well, my dad is a police officer. During the summer, he is called out to eradicate marijuana in fields all over Indiana (making up most of Indiana, as I see it). Well, he stopped at my aunt's house to get something after a day of tramping around in jingleweed, and her cat (usually highly unfriendly) took a particular liking to his boots. He polished them, he licked them, he tried to eat the shoelaces... Happy is quite the fiend. I wonder if he had the munchies afterwards.

-- Anonymous, June 06, 2000

Animals love the taste of hemp twine, it would seem. I make alot of necklaces and stuff out of it, and my dog has ruined several large spools of the twine. She steals it and takes it into the backyard and chews it to death. My old boyfriend's cat would climb on his chest and try to eat his hemp necklace off his neck.

My dog likes vanilla ice cream cones from Dairy Queen, if you hold them for her so she can lick them.

-- Anonymous, June 07, 2000

I have a houseful: 2 cats and 1 dog. Nick (the black cat) will eat anything! When cooking chicken I must close him up in either the closet or the bathroom else he will jump into the pan, hot or not. Pancakes are another favorite for which he will not be polite and beg or sit and wait, but would rather just jump directly into the plate. Jute (Ragdoll cat) prefers dairy and regular catfood. Once in a while he'll eat hamburger or chicken, but not often. He does enjoy Puppy Chow for some reason... Now Digger, lovable mutt that he is, will eat anything. Vegetable like tomatoes, broccoli, carrots. Fruits like grapes, bananas, oranges. If I eat it, he'll eat it, whether I give it to him or he steals it. But I'd have to say his absolute favorite is rice.

-- Anonymous, June 09, 2000

My dog, Henry, seems to have acquired a lot of vegetarian tendencies from me. He loves several kinds of raw vegetables (carrots, broccoli, tomatoes, radishes), cooked vegetables (carrots, broccoli, tomatoes, asparagus, peppers, potatoes, corn) as well as some fruit (bananas, peaches, pears, and he never met a berry he didn't like). Also, if you put garlic on just about any food he wouldn't normally be too excited about (say, lettuce), he'll eat that too! It doesn't seem to have hurt him, though. He's a very healthy 15 year-old Basset!

-- Anonymous, April 04, 2001

I have two cats and one dog. The oldest cat has no use for people food. Years ago he might nibble on a little tuna but he really has no interest in it. We've tried giving him milk and fish as a treat but he ignores it. The other cat loves beef and fish. His favorite is steak on the grill. The dog loves people food, of course, but the thing that amazes me is that he loves fruits and vegetables. Tomatoes, bananas, orange slices, broccoli and cucumbers seem to be his favorite but he'll nose around anything.

The weirdest was a cat I had growing up. She loved tomato sauce. That an Oreo cookies. She was awesome.

-- Anonymous, April 09, 2001

One of my cats not only enjoys anthing with tomato sauce,he also loves Iams dog food. He will also eat bananas. Although not if they are overly ripe. Another minor oddity is that he likes to go down to the basement and eat spiders off the wall. One day I was down there folding laundry and I noticed that he kept jumping up and then busying himself with something on the floor. But I couldn't see what he was doing until I walked over to him and watched him for a minute. Sure enough,he would jump up and whack a spider to the floor and then snarf it up. Fortunately,the spiders were neither large nor poisonous.

-- Anonymous, May 13, 2001

An ex-boyfriend's cats used to go nuts over garlic mushrooms, which amused me no end. They also used to lick the salty flavouring off potato chips, leaving the soggy remains for you to clean up.

-- Anonymous, May 14, 2001

Porrang (cat) loves cantaloupe (sounds like this is really common), french fries, bean dip, barbeque potato chips, and any kind of bread. Both of my cats adore canned mandarin oranges.

-- Anonymous, May 14, 2001