Top Ten Unlikable Pets you might Come to Love

Posted November 1, 2022 by elzaread in Top Ten Tuesday / 41 Comments

Greetings you guys! It’s Tuesday and time for Top Ten Tuesday. This week’s prompt is Unlikeable Characters you can’t help but love. It had my Mommy scratching her head a bit. Luckily, I was around to safe the day and once again, come up with a great twist.

As you all hopefully know by now, I am a gorgeous feline and rather self entitled towards myself and my species. So it’s no surprise that I can once again swing the prompt to suit me.

Cats aren’t known to befriend other creatures easily. Except for horses and Labradors. Somehow, that combination usually work. Labradors get along with everyone and everything and horses tend to have slightly more issues than cats. Probably why we can tolerate them.

Here’s a lists of ten animals I believe rather unlikely to ever befriend a cat. Or vice versa:

  1. A Giant Pacific Octopus. Water and tentacles, not going to work.

A novel tracing a widow’s unlikely connection with a giant Pacific octopus.

After Tova Sullivan’s husband died, she began working the night shift at the Sowell Bay Aquarium, mopping floors and tidying up. Keeping busy has always helped her cope, which she’s been doing since her eighteen-year-old son, Erik, mysteriously vanished on a boat in Puget Sound over thirty years ago.

Tova becomes acquainted with curmudgeonly Marcellus, a giant Pacific octopus living at the aquarium. Marcellus knows more than anyone can imagine but wouldn’t dream of lifting one of his eight arms for his human captors–until he forms a remarkable friendship with Tova.

Ever the detective, Marcellus deduces what happened the night Tova’s son disappeared. And now Marcellus must use every trick his old invertebrate body can muster to unearth the truth for her before it’s too late.

2. A Circus Elephant. Just one misstep is too great a risk to take.

Orphaned and penniless at the height of the Depression, Jacob Jankowski escapes everything he knows by jumping on a passing train—and inadvertently runs away with the circus. So begins

Water for Elephants, Sara Gruen’s darkly beautiful tale about the characters who inhabit the less-than-greatest show on earth. Jacob finds a place tending the circus animals, including a seemingly untrainable elephant named Rosie. He also comes to know Marlena, the star of the equestrian act—and wife of August, a charismatic but cruel animal trainer. Caught between his love for Marlena and his need to belong in the crazy family of travelling performers, Jacob is freed only by a murderous secret that will bring the big top down.

Water for Elephants is an enchanting page-turner, the kind of book that creates a world that engulfs you from the first page to the last. A national bestseller in Canada and a New York Times bestseller in the United States, this is a book destined to become a beloved fiction classic.

3. A Dachshund with an octopus problem. Although I might have sympathy with Lily and will pay my respects, but no – you can’t be my friend.

Combining the emotional depth of The Art of Racing in the Rain with the magical spirit of The Life of PiLily and the Octopus is an epic adventure of the heart.

When you sit down with Lily and the Octopus, you will be taken on an unforgettable ride.

The magic of this novel is in the read, and we don’t want to spoil it by giving away too many details. We can tell you that this is a story about that special someone: the one you trust, the one you can’t live without.

For Ted Flask, that someone special is his aging companion Lily, who happens to be a dog. Lily and the Octopus reminds us how it feels to love fiercely, how difficult it can be to let go, and how the fight for those we love is the greatest fight of all.

Remember the last book you told someone they had to read? Lily and the Octopus is the next one.

4. A pet pig. Perhaps we can talk about this one. As long as I can name him Bacon and the promise of bacon will be guaranteed.

Nine-year-old Milo Moon has retinitis pigmentosa: his eyes are slowly failing, and he will eventually go blind. But for now he sees the world through a pin hole and notices things other people don’t.

When Milo’s beloved gran succumbs to dementia and moves into a nursing home, Milo soon realises there’s something wrong at the home. So with just Tripi, the nursing home’s cook, and Hamlet, his pet pig, to help, Milo sets out on a mission to expose the nursing home…

5. An alligator. Just no. No discussion necessary.

Big Fish meets The Notebook in this emotionally evocative story about a man, a woman, and an alligator that is a moving tribute to love, from the author of the award-winning memoir Rocket Boys—the basis of the movie October Sky

Elsie Lavender and Homer Hickam (the father of the author) were high school classmates in the West Virginia coalfields, graduating just as the Great Depression began. When Homer asked for her hand, Elsie instead headed to Orlando where she sparked with a dancing actor named Buddy Ebsen (yes, that Buddy Ebsen). But when Buddy headed for New York, Elsie’s dreams of a life with him were crushed and eventually she found herself back in the coalfields, married to Homer.

Unfulfilled as a miner’s wife, Elsie was reminded of her carefree days with Buddy every day because of his unusual wedding gift: an alligator named Albert she raised in the only bathroom in the house. When Albert scared Homer by grabbing his pants, he gave Elsie an ultimatum: “Me or that alligator!” After giving it some thought, Elsie concluded there was only one thing to do: Carry Albert home.

Carrying Albert Home is the funny, sweet, and sometimes tragic tale of a young couple and a special alligator on a crazy 1000-mile adventure. Told with the warmth and down-home charm that made Rocket Boys/October Sky a beloved bestseller, Homer Hickam’s rollicking tale is ultimately a testament to that strange and marvelous emotion we inadequately call love.

6. A Woodland snail. We have snails in the garden. We tend to seek the same garden wall. This friendship might have potential.

In a work that beautifully demonstrates the rewards of closely observing nature, Elisabeth Bailey shares an inspiring and intimate story of her uncommon encounter with a Neohelix albolabris —a common woodland snail.

While an illness keeps her bedridden, Bailey watches a wild snail that has taken up residence on her nightstand. As a result, she discovers the solace and sense of wonder that this mysterious creature brings and comes to a greater understanding of her own confined place in the world.

Intrigued by the snail’s molluscan anatomy, cryptic defenses, clear decision making, hydraulic locomotion, and mysterious courtship activities, Bailey becomes an astute and amused observer, providing a candid and engaging look into the curious life of this underappreciated small animal.

Told with wit and grace, The Sound of a Wild Snail Eating is a remarkable journey of survival and resilience, showing us how a small part of the natural world illuminates our own human existence and provides an appreciation of what it means to be fully alive.

7. A charismatic squirrel. Dear squirrel, you have no idea how quickly I can climb a tree and balance on the thinnest of  branches. If you can keep up, we can be friends.

The Portable Veblen is a dazzlingly original novel that’s as big-hearted as it is laugh-out-loud funny. Set in and around Palo Alto, amid the culture clash of new money and old (antiestablishment) values, and with the specter of our current wars looming across its pages, The Portable Veblen is an unforgettable look at the way we live now. A young couple on the brink of marriage—the charming Veblen and her fiancé Paul, a brilliant neurologist—find their engagement in danger of collapse. Along the way they weather everything from each other’s dysfunctional families, to the attentions of a seductive pharmaceutical heiress, to an intimate tête-à-tête with a very charismatic squirrel.

Veblen (named after the iconoclastic economist Thorstein Veblen, who coined the term “conspicuous consumption”) is one of the most refreshing heroines in recent fiction. Not quite liberated from the burdens of her hypochondriac, narcissistic mother and her institutionalized father, Veblen is an amateur translator and “freelance self”; in other words, she’s adrift. Meanwhile, Paul—the product of good hippies who were bad parents—finds his ambition soaring. His medical research has led to the development of a device to help minimize battlefield brain trauma—an invention that gets him swept up in a high-stakes deal with the Department of Defense, a Bizarro World that McKenzie satirizes with granular specificity.

As Paul is swept up by the promise of fame and fortune, Veblen heroically keeps the peace between all the damaged parties involved in their upcoming wedding, until she finds herself falling for someone—or something—else. Throughout, Elizabeth McKenzie asks: Where do our families end and we begin? How do we stay true to our ideals? And what is that squirrel really thinking? Replete with deadpan photos and sly appendices, The Portable Veblen is at once an honest inquiry into what we look for in love and an electrifying reading experience.

8. A mouse. A purple mouse. Ha ha ha ha. Of course we can be friends…..

She’s always been her family’s dirty little secret,
but now she’s finally free…

Wynona Le Doux would never have chosen to be born into the most powerful, ruling witch family in all of Hex Haven. And she certainly wouldn’t have chosen to be cursed at birth and grow up without powers. Nor would she have ever wanted to add ‘amateur sleuth’ to her resume.

It seemed fate left her no choice.

Having been hid from the public since birth because of her curse, it isn’t until Wynona’s grandmother helps her escape on the Spring Equinox that Wynona manages to make a few decisions for herself…that is until a dead body is found in her tea shop.

She’s only six days away from her grand opening when the police mark off the area as a crime scene, putting her plans on hold.

Even with an alibi, the chief of police has Wynona at the top of his suspect list and the grumpy vampire seems determined to put her behind bars. Despite that, it isn’t until customers begin cancelling their appointments that Wynona knows she has to step in and solve this crime or lose her dream forever.

Without any magical powers, she’s going to need all the help she can get. A wingless fairy, a too-handsome landlord and a purple mouse are not exactly the dream team she had in mind.

Follow Wynona and her band of misfits as they navigate a city of magic, mystery and danger in this light-hearted, paranormal cozy mystery by Abigail Thornton.

9. A hawk. I’m rather small for a full-grown kitty. A hawk can easily still carry me away. Let’s not cross paths.

As a child, Helen Macdonald was determined to become a falconer. She learned the arcane terminology and read all the classic books, including T.H. White’s tortured masterpiece, “The Goshawk,” which describes White’s struggle to train a hawk as a spiritual contest.

When her father dies and she is knocked sideways by grief, she becomes obsessed with the idea of training her own goshawk. She buys Mabel for £800 on a Scottish quayside and takes her home to Cambridge. Then she fills the freezer with hawk food and unplugs the phone, ready to embark on the long, strange business of trying to train this wildest of animals.

Destined to be a classic of nature writing, “H is for Hawk” is a record of a spiritual journey – an unflinchingly honest account of Macdonald’s struggle with grief during the difficult process of the hawk’s taming and her own untaming. At the same time, it’s a kaleidoscopic biography of the brilliant and troubled novelist T. H. White, best known for “The Once and Future King.” It’s a book about memory, nature and nation, and how it might be possible to try to reconcile death with life and love.

10. A Wirehaired Terrier. This is not working at all. And now the damn mutt is starting to hijack my blog as well. A plan will have to be made.

Everyone blamed Emily Arundell’s accident on a rubber ball left on the stairs at her home in Market Basing by her frisky terrier, Bob. But the more she thought about her fall, the more convinced she became that one of her relatives was trying to kill her.

So, on April 17th she wrote about her anxieties and suspicions in a letter to Hercule Poirot. And included a request that he consult with her as soon as possible. Mysteriously he didn’t receive the letter until June 28th … by which time Emily was already dead.

Any other pets you would recommend I rather stay clear of? Or any suggestions of those I can easily befriend?

As you all hopefully know by now, I am a gorgeous feline and rather self entitled towards myself and my species. Here's a list of ten unlikely animals a cat will befriend. #TTT Click To Tweet

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41 responses to “Top Ten Unlikable Pets you might Come to Love

  1. I like how all these books spotlight animals, fun! Maybe she would like those in Charlotte’s Web? hmm. Or Watership Down? ha.

    • Hi Greg!

      I might still give the Octopus a try, but no – they shouldn’t be kept as pets at all. Have you seen the documentary My Octopus Teacher? Aah that was so lovely!

      Elephants are my spirit animal, I’m sure of that! So Anna must just get used to it…

      Thanks for the visit and I hope you are doing well!