Friday, October 13, 2023

My cat Otto is up to mischief with jigsaw puzzles!

Cat playing with jigsaw puzzle

Cat playing with jigsaw puzzle

cat chewing jigsaw puzzle piece
My cat Otto has taken to helping me with solving jigsaw puzzles. He knows the moment I start working on a puzzle and appears, on the table, from wherever he is in the house within seconds! I am sure that he has a built-in radar that senses the slightest movement I make around the dining table where I do my puzzling.

The funny thing is that when mum and dad work on a jigsaw puzzle, Otto isn't the least bit interested in it. It's only when I have a go that Otto has an irresistible urge to jump on the table and "help". I have tried to creep silently into the dining room when Otto is fast asleep, somewhere in the house, but to no avail. Otto is guaranteed to appear. 

Here are Otto's instructions for the different methods he uses in helping with a jigsaw puzzle:

1) Run across the table and stop abruptly on the jigsaw as it skids across and off the table. It is more fun if the entire puzzle lands on the floor.

2) Sit on a dining chair and paw one puzzle piece until it falls off the table. Repeat as many times as desired.

3) Sit or lie in the jigsaw puzzle box, full of pieces, and one by one pick pieces up and toss them onto the table amongst the pieces that have been sorted.

4) Pretend to sleep in the jigsaw box full of pieces, until Rose, who is also "playing" with the jigsaw, is off-guard, and then pounce onto the jigsaw puzzle.

4) Sit in the box and grab a mouthful of jigsaw pieces and run off with them, dropping the pieces along the way.

5) Lie on the puzzle, as part of quality control, to make sure that all of the jigsaw pieces are lying flat. 

6) If the jigsaw pieces aren't thought to be in the correct place, correct it by rolling over and over on the puzzle. Or bat the pieces around to rearrange them. 

7) The best way to "help" is when Rose is doing a vintage puzzle with all the pieces hidden in a calico bag. Proceed to push the bag around the table until it opens. Once the bag is opened take one, two or three pieces by mouth and chew them, then drop them and get more pieces out of the bag. It is more fun if Rose thinks that the jigsaw piece is going to get swallowed!  (Three steps of this process were caught in the photos above).

Cat sitting on completed jigsaw puzzle
Luckily, I always, eventually, find all of the 1000 jigsaw puzzle pieces. So far, they have all been located in the dining room.

And here is Otto posing with his finished jigsaw puzzle. It only took him a couple of weeks to destroy complete!

Completed vintage wildflower jigsaw puzzle

Dad is now addicted to jigsaw puzzling too. We only have two more puzzles left to do, so mum and I went to the local Op shops (charity shops) today looking for more puzzles. We managed to find five 1000-piece puzzles which we thought dad would like. Most of them cost around $6 and $7 each. So much cheaper than buying them new, especially when we do so many now that we are settled into our new house. They are so absorbing and a good activity to exercise our brains on a rainy day or evening.

When we finish the jigsaw puzzles, we pass most of them on to my sister, who then passes them on to her friends, and they eventually get donated back to the Op shops to be sold again. I keep the Cavallini vintage puzzles, in the cylindrical boxes, as I get quite attached to them and find them hard to part with.

What do you do for fun on a rainy day?

See you again soon.

Hugs, Rose x

12 comments:

  1. Oh that did make me laugh. We haven’t tried a jigsaw puzzle yet with our two cats. That will be fun! B x

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    1. Hi B, Otto is such fun with his antics. He is such a lovely cat that I could never get cross with him, even when he runs off with the jigsaw puzzle pieces lol. I can't imagine doing a jigsaw puzzle with two cats helping, you should give it a go. If they are curious cats (I have never met a cat that wasn't) then they are bound to help you :o) Hugs, Rose x

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  2. What a great time with a cute cat and and puzzle! LOVELY!
    Titti

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    1. Hi Titti, thank you. My cat Otto is very funny with jigsaw puzzles! it is always a laugh when he helps me :o) Hugs, Rose x

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  3. Otto looks like a sweet and fun cat to be around. He just loves to keep you entertained while he dutifully helps you with a puzzle. Love the completed puzzle :-)
    Thank you for visiting me too x

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    1. Hi Beverley, it is lovely to see you visiting. Otto is very devoted to helping me and he follows me everywhere I go. I think that jigsaw puzzling is one his favourite pastimes, another is rolling or sitting on my keyboard while I am typing. Luckily the keyboard on/off button is located on top of the keyboard, so I can turn it off quickly without having to interrupt Otto when he is hard at work! Hugs, Rose x

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  4. Cats are get into such mischief! I don't have the patience for puzzles...what a great way to pass the time though. Otto just knows you need a little "help"!

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    1. Hi Mary, I agree, Otto just knows lol. How is your bottling and harvesting going? Hugs, Rose x

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  5. Sometimes there is nothing better than a rainy day to soothe the soul! We generally have enough projects around the house to keep us occupied on a rainy day.

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    1. Hi Jim & Barb, I love it when it rains in Spring. It makes all the new green leaves on the trees look even fresher and I like the sound of the rain on the roof while we are indoors, it is very soothing. Mostly I like rainy days because they give dad an "excuse" to stop and rest and do some jigsaw puzzling. Luckily, we don't have any projects that need doing inside our new house, apart from the usual housework. What projects are you working on at the moment?

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  6. Don't cats just love to 'help'? It's fascinating watching them, though.
    I like jigsaw puzzles and so do two of my adult children. (What do you call adult children?) My son likes 2000-piece puzzles - too much for me!

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    1. Hi, yes, all the cats we have ever had loved helping and Otto is the same. They are very good at jigsaws, typing on a keyboard, cutting out sewing patterns, reading newspapers and making beds! I don't know if I could cope with a 2000-piece jigsaw puzzle with Otto around, there wouldn't be enough room on the table! Hugs, Rose x

      P.S. (I looked on Wikipedia and found that you can refer to an adult child as "offspring that has reached the age of majority" lol).

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