Hey all!
I had more rotting stuff sloppily rolling around in my head and I wanted to share. This time, art and story hooks based on pet behaviors.
Fluff Pulling - Stressed birds are known to pluck their own feathers, and doing it enough can lead to permanent bald patches. A neglected fluffy may start tearing out its own fluff as a way to get attention, or because its self image is so bad that it starts to hate its fluff for not being pretty enough to love.
Chewing - A fluffy with a poor diet, dealing with boredom, or simply with too much energy may start chewing things. This could be turned in to something cute and hugboxy by giving them appropriate chew-toys to keep them busy (nummie-toysies), or could lead to serious harm if they start swallowing upholstery fibers or work their way through electrical cords unnoticed. A lamp in a safe room might have a power cord that looks like spaghetti to an over-excited fluffy.
Corprophagia - A fluffy that is desperate for attention or even simply more food, may start consuming its own feces. While forcing a fluffy to do this as punishment is classic abuse, and some creators will have fluffies do it to try to hide bad poopies, a fluffy that starts doing so out sheer lonliness or poor diet is much less explored in the community.
Niping and Biting - Fluffies eating foals out of a lack of food is a tried and true sadbox trope. But an otherwise healthy and normal fluffy that nips or bites other fluffies, or even humans, is something I haven’t seen. A fluffy that handles fear by lashing out and retreating would make for an interesting sadbox story.
Sexual Imprinting - A fluffy is confused by a lack of mate and imprints on an object or human for sexual attraction instead. Even when meeting a compatible breeding partner, the fluffy rejects this special-friend-to-be and favors the object instead. There’s an excellent comic in this community involving a fluffy and a shoe, and enfie-plushies are a thing. But a fluffy on a leg, or maybe a foal going full head-humper isn’t something I’ve run in to yet.