A few weeks ago, I started finding huge clumps of hair around my neighborhood as I walked Maddie. They were white, grey, and black for the most part, with a few being brown-ish. One of the neighbors has a Sheep Dog – I know, totally appropriate considering it’s hotter than the face of the sun here in Florida for 3 solid months of the year – so I figured maybe they had just groomed their dog outside and didn’t quite pick up all the hair. No big deal.
Until a few days later, when I found more clumps of hair – this time just white and grey, coincidentally, the same colors as their sheep dog. And this time there were a lot more of them. A lot. They were huge and scattered all over the neighborhood. I was really starting to feel that our sheepdog owning neighbor was being disrespectful and taking advantage of the suburban nice-ness that clearly exists in our little community. I almost openly judged them as I walked by their house, glaring eyes and all (except, in the end, I couldn’t do it…you know, suburban nice-ness and all).
Fast forward to early last week when Erajh and I were on the phone. I was at work and he was out walking Maddie. We were catching up on all the important stuff (you know, like the mandatory “What’s for Dinner” conversation, how ridiculously cute our kids are while still being insanely trying, and general tidbits about our day) when Erajh said, “I wish these squirrels would stop shedding so much.”
To which I responded, “What?”.
“You know, all these clumps of hair in the grass”, he replied, “it’s the squirrels. They’re shedding.”
Rather than just accept what he was saying, I questioned how he knew the shedding habits of squirrels. I love my husband, but he’s not exactly Mr. Outdoors. And the clumps of hair are just so big – like the size of actual squirrels. A squirrel would have to shed every bit of hair it had in order to yield a hairball this size, which would leave a completely naked squirrel. I’m pretty sure I’d remember if I saw a completely naked squirrel roaming our neighborhood (and if I did, you’d better believe you’d see a picture in my Instagram feed of an uncomfortable squirrel trying to cover up their nether regions labeled, “Look – It’s a completely naked squirrel. LOL x 1 million”). And remember, it’s not just one clump of hair here or there – there are tons of them within a fairly close vicinity – and you’ll go days without seeing one and then BAM! Tons of hairballs. That would mean that these squirrels aren’t just shedding in the privacy of their own trees, or wherever they live, they’re holding parties on specific days where they’re all getting naked. I’m pretty sure our homeowners’ association would have a problem with that. I take that back, I know they would definitely have a problem with that.
So what do you think? Is it squirrels shedding or something else? Should I still be angrily blaming our sheepdog neighbor (in a nice suburban way)?
And please keep in mind when looking at the pictures that it had rained this particular day so the hair is in a ball flat on the ground, but normally they are like furry tumbleweeds the size of an adult squirrel rolling through our South Florida neighborhood. But again, no naked squirrels…I can’t stress that enough.
Squirrels molt at least once a year, sometimes twice. They will have very thin hair left over or even bald patches when they are done, since they shed almost all their fur. This is normal as they are switching from a very thick winter coat to a lighter summer coat.
Wow – you have some serious squirrel knowledge! Very impressive! I guess I’m just surprised because I’ve never seen this before and we live in such a warm climate that it’s hard to believe that they even need to shed any type of coat. But I guess they probably molt regardless of the temperature, it’s just something they do naturally. They must be doing it as group though because the clumps of hair are everywhere!
I see clumps of fur all over my neighborhood ,too. And we have tons of squirrel! Happy Friendship Friday!