We talk about people being capricious, or goat-like – they’re never the same two days running, their moods as unpredictable as a goat leaping from crag to crag.

People can be:

catty, crabby, batty, bitchy, fishy, foxy (sly or sexy), mousy, rabbity, ratty, snaky, spidery or weaselly

Or they can be:

bullish, doggish, kittenish, mulish, owlish, sheepish, shrewish, sluggish or waspish (But not cattish or kitteny – why?)

Or they may be:

asinine (idiotic), bovine (passive), colubrine (snaky), corvine (crow-like), elephantine (huge), leonine (having a mane), leporine (rabbity), ophidian (snaky), porcine (fat, greedy), reptilian, saurian (lizardly), ursine (bear-like, fat), vespine (waspish), vulpine (foxy)

Or a noun can become an adjective for people who are scared, deluded, shame-faced or huge:

chicken, cuckoo, hang-dog, mammoth

Or you can borrow just one characteristic and be:

bird-brained, bird-witted, chicken-hearted, doe-eyed, dog tired, eagle-eyed, hare-brained, hawk-nosed, horse-faced, lion-hearted, mule-headed, pig-headed

Or you can act as a:

bell wether, bete noire, birdbrain, bitch, black sheep, bugbear, busy bee, cat, cat’s paw, church hen, cold fish, copy cat, coxcomb, dog’s body, donkey, eager beaver, fat cat, filthy swine, fink (finch – but why should finches grass on their friends?), fox, fraidy cat, gadfly, gannet, gay dog, goat (staked out to catch a tiger), greedy pig, happy bunny, hawk/dove, judas goat, lab rat, lamb, lame duck, leader of the pack, lone wolf, lounge lizard, love rat, lying hound, lying toad, minnow (minor cricket team/villain as opposed to “big fish”), mole, mother hen, news hound, old goat, old trout, perfect lamb, pig(gy) in the middle, poor fish, poor lamb, queen bee, road hog, scaredy cat, sex kitten, shark, sheep (all we like sheep), silly ass, silly goose, silly old goat, skunk, sly fox, social butterfly, stool-pigeon, stormy petrel, stupid cow/mare, top cat, top dog, vulture, weasel, wet fish, white elephant, wise old owl, worm

Or you may imitate the action of a tiger (Shakespeare) and:

ape your betters (monkey see, monkey do), badger (somebody), beaver (away at something), chicken out, clam up, dog (someone’s footsteps), duck, egg somebody on, fawn, fox, go to the dogs, hare around, hare off, hog (the limelight) horse around, make an ass/a pig of yourself, monkey around, monkey with, parrot, pig out, pussyfoot around, rat on (someone), rook, squirrel (something) away, swan around, weasel (something out of someone), wolf down your food, worm (your way in, something out of someone)

A Gilbert and Sullivan policeman steals up on his prey with catlike tread.

You can also have a:

birdlike appetite

grasshopper mind

exhibit:

crocodile tears

doglike devotion

horse sense

lemming-like behaviour (legend)

ratlike cunning

get up to monkey business or monkey tricks,repeat something parrot fashion, send a message by snail mail and then sing your swan song.