Spring is finally here and it feels as though Bubbles and I are finally coming out of hibernation! The flea - prevention stuff has been applied, with much fidgeting on Bubbles' part... But she knows it means freedom to explore the garden so she put up with it and only made a few terrible sounds, as if I were torturing her mercilessly!
The hanging baskets and garden pots are all planted and we are just waiting for the first flowers to appear. The shed is in dire need of painting but it will have to wait until slightly more stable weather and Bubbles will most certainly not be allowed outside while that is going on. We don't want a khaki green cat.
Bubbles' old scratching post finally fell apart after almost eight years of good service, so we have treated her to a lovely, plush, brand new one. We thought she would love the soft, velvety platforms in contrast with her old rough ribbed carpeted ones. We thought she would languish luxuriously; basking in the softness. We thought she would be up on it with a hop, skip and a jump... We thought wrong!
While she was sleeping upstairs, my other half built Bubbles' new scratching post and took the old one away. Bubbles came downstairs a while later and marched into the lounge. She stopped and eyed the new structure suspiciously then tiptoed across the room to sniff it carefully, turned on her heel and marched back out.
A few days later, Bubbles felt comfortable enough to lie on the very bottom platform and we saw her scratching on the first carpeted vertical post but she would NOT climb it!
A few days after that, when she needed to do a really good scratch and was having a mad half hour, she jumped up to the second vertical post and had a really thorough scratching session but she would NOT put her paws on the platforms! Usually, at this point while clinging like a monkey to the side of a tree she reaches up, grabs hold of the next platform and swings herself up. But not now!
Weeks later she still would NOT sit on any of the platforms apart from the Ground Floor one.
Finally, the little cogs were working well enough for me to realise that the fact her new scratching post is all smooth and silky-soft is the exact reason Bubbles has struggled to get to grips with it. It's just not grippy enough for her to grasp and grab to pull herself up onto!
But now she has a new strategy. She jumps boing-boing-boing up onto platform 1, 2 and 3, and lo and behold, she loves her new scratching tree.
