Sarah van der Kley: Pets do the craziest things

Sarah van der Kley, of The Hits.

Sometimes I sit at home looking at my animals wondering what on earth is going on in their brains.

They are a bit weird.

I swear our cat hates us. She never wants to be picked up, patted or paid any attention.

Yet she will climb up on the table and yell at us for hours for seemingly no reason.

She has food, and water; I open the door to let her outside but she doesn't want a bar of it.

She will paw at the door of the bathroom while I'm getting ready in the morning (she can make a heck of a racquet for something so small) and yet when I open the door, she looks at me, turns tail and stalks off.

I think her sole mission in life is to annoy us. Mission accomplished, cat.

The dog is very intelligent in a stupid kind of way.

She spends most of her time gazing longingly at me and has recently also taken to following me into the bathroom to lick the water out of the shower or bath. Even though she always has water available to her.

We asked Hawke's Bay what weird habits their pets have and, boy, there are some doozies!

We spoke to Fran, whose dog sleeps outside and every night, she will pick up one of each of the family of five's shoes from the back door and take it back to her kennel.

Not to chew, just to sleep with.

Lisa has a cat who, since he was a kitten, has suckled on her top so it kind of looks like she's breast-feeding it.

I confess our old cat used to do that too; it's fine until someone comes to the door and wonders what on earth you're doing!

Tracey has a chihuahua who likes to sit around her neck like a scarf while she's driving, one woman has a dog who doesn't like to get his own bottom dirty so sits on his brother when they're outside instead, and another now has to keep the bathroom door shut at all times otherwise the cat will wander in and poop in the bath.

Hey, there are worse places it could do its business.

It would seem all animals have their little quirks but we love them like family anyway . . . little weirdos that they are.

• Don't miss Adam Green and Sarah van der Kley on The Hits Hawke's Bay from 6am to 9am, Monday to Friday.