Oscar loves sunny days. When the sun is shining, Oscar can be found in the sun spot, napping or just relaxing and enjoying the warmth. On sunny days, Oscar is calm, content, and predictable. I always know where to find him, and he doesn’t move around much unless he’s looking for food or needs to go outside.
Since Oscar loves the sun so much, he hates cloudy days. On days when Oscar can’t find his beloved sun spot, he starts out grumpy and then turns mischievous. He never knows where to settle when it’s cloudy, so he spends most of his time wandering around the house. I call his cloudy day wandering “noodling” since he is never destructive but follows his curiosity around and gently roots on things, occasionally rearranging them.
Oscar’s favorite place to noodle on cloudy days is our closet. Oscar has always loved rooting on shoes, and the closet provides plenty of opportunities. When he’s finished rooting on the shoes, he moves on to my sock and hat bins and roots around in them. Since he isn’t destructive, the only sign that Oscar has been noodling in the closet are the rearranged shoes, no longer with their matching pair, and the socks and hats spilled out of their bins onto the floor. When he’s finished in the closet, he usually noodles around the house until he makes it to the entryway where he has more shoes to rearrange.
We’ve been fortunate in that Oscar hasn’t ever been destructive up to this point, so he doesn’t get into too much trouble while he’s noodling. However, he still requires more of my attention on cloudy days. When he was younger, he tried to chew on power cords a few times and once nearly ate a grass burr from our yard that was stuck to one of our rugs. So, although I don’t worry yet about him destroying things, I keep a close eye on him when he’s noodling for his own safety.
Once I figured out that Oscar is always restless on cloudy days, I learned to plan for them. If I know it’s going to be cloudy, I plan more training time for that day or more outdoor time where he can root around safely. Or, I just let him noodle around the house and block off more time where I can hang out in the closet with him and watch while he roots around to make sure he’s safe.
Although Oscar requires more time and attention on cloudy days, it’s nice sometimes to have a reason to stop and just play and hang out with him. His noodling is a part of his personality I really enjoy, and it’s fun watching him follow his curiosity and discover new things he doesn’t notice on sunny days.
Does Oscar eat the ends of your shoe strings? Elvis does so our closet is off limits. He also destroyed my 31 catalog, which my rep loves him and didn’t mind dropping off another catalog. Do you have any suggestions for cloudy days?
Oscar loves all shoes and shoe strings. 🙂 He chewed the little plastic end off of one of my shoe laces but otherwise just kind of noodles around on them these days. We started closing our closet too though because it’s just too enticing of a place for Oscar, and he likes to pull all my hats and socks out of their bins. It’s pretty cute but also kind of annoying to have to pick them all up and put them back each time. We definitely can’t leave any kind of paper or cardboard out because he loves to destroy those, so I’m sure he would have loved if Elvis would have shared your 31 catalog for team destruction…haha. I still don’t have a perfect solution for cloudy days, but I have a few things I try. If it’s cloudy but not raining, I take advantage of as much outside rooting time as I can. Lately, we’ve had some cloudy but warm days, so that works well for getting him out and burning energy rooting. If it’s cloudy and rainy, I have to pull out all the stops. I’ve learned to set my expectations and just know that I’m going to have to spend more time watching him and entertaining him. Then I pull out the treat ball and his ball pit and put treats or his meals in those throughout the day. I also plan more training time with him those days just to get him engaged and the stimulation seems to help him from getting too bored. We still don’t have a great system for cloudy days since he gets all out of sorts and off of his schedule, but those things seem to help at least.