Bubba was still being timid when we got back. He was still thinking he couldn’t come off the rug, and wouldn’t notice when he’d step off to change beds that he wasn’t sliding. Buddy and I went outside, sitting on the deck where it was warm with a slight breeze. I motioned Buddy up to the empty deck chair and he jumped up. Bubba came out and got into the outside bed, which I put out for him. Then he started whimpering, and looking around like trying to find a safe spot off the bed. He had walked across the dining room and out on the deck with no problems, but it hadn’t registered yet – but he was still moving around, albeit without awareness just yet.
I’m still skeptical that the outside problems were caused by the toenails, but I was totally wrong about inside. It will take him a little while to adjust, but we’ve definitely solved the inside issue.
Both guys have been great through this process. We’re having burgers with dinner tonight to reward outselves!
Buddy and I went for a pretty good walk. We went though the condos on a route he seems to like to take through the front area and around the pool. We went out to the sidewalk on Selva, and he wanted to jog home.
We walked about half an hour, and he pooped.
Bubba and I went to the groomer to get his nails done. Getting out of the house was easy enough. Bubba wanted to walk. He always wants to walk, until he gets his front paws outside the door, and then he doesn’t. Buddy was going to be the difficult factor in getting out. He doesn’t want to be left out if there’s a walk happening. I was going to be carrying Bubba, which meant Buddy underfoot, or pulling a leash down the stairs, was really risky. He would push to go out though. That problem was easily fixed with a Milk Bone and a Greenie.
Bubba was fine being carried out. He just went along for the ride, all the way into the car. He started trying to dig through the floor mats while we were backing out of the parking spot. When the car started moving forward, he started to shake, and the shaking got continuously worse the whole way. He made himself sick right before we got to Blue Lantern – thankfully I didn’t throw out the old floor mats when I got the car. I was petting him the entire drive, trying to calm him.
I carried him from the car into the groomer, and the shaking was horrible. The woman at the counter, I think the owner of the groomer, said, “Bubba, what’s wrong?” as soon as we walked in. The shaking could be seen from a distance. I didn’t put him down, but handed him across the counter. Another woman was called to hold him while the nails were being clipped and filed – it was normally a one-person job, but not today. The nails just took a moment. A couple of snips, and filing with a rotary tool and we were good to go.
I let him walk out of the shop. He resumed walking like a scared cat all the way back to the car. His head was constantly darting around nervously like something was about to attack.
The drive back was the opposite of the drive there. Once we were moving, he calmed right down and it was just another car ride. He was nervous-ish walking from the car to the condo, but a little better than he was walking from the shop to the car. He was fine going up the first half of the stairs, but crouched back into full-defense mode and sprinted up the second set of stairs. The second set was where he slipped and fell the other day, probably explaining that behavior.
Inside, he wanted to be frightening, running to the bed, not realizing that he walked across the hardwood to get there. I let him feel out the situation on his own for a bit, and took Buddy out for a walk.
After getting the timeline of Bubba’s progression together, I had reached out to Hillery. I asked if she was able to get upstairs at all, having seen her on crutches earlier in the day. We went over what Bubba’s problems were, and she agreed to come over. I was afraid it would be a wasted – and uncomfortable – trip for her, because the guys often forget they have anything wrong in the presence of someone fun. That was not the case. Hillery sat on the floor with her back against the sofa, and Bubba was too afraid to get out of his bed and travel 3 feet to go to her.
Hillery picked him up, and cuddled with him for a really long time. He was thrilled with that, and they spent a long time just visiting. I just chatted about the history of Bubba’s symptoms, and played with Buddy and the reindeer. She commented on his nails, and said she had someone coming to take care of her cat’s nails. I said it would be good to have her stop by, whether it was the problem or not, the nails were long.
We chatted about the potential problems and fixes, and noticed that he hadn’t used the pee pads. So I carried him into the bathroom, which he ignored and ran to one of the bedroom beds. Hillery moved into the bedroom with him, laid down on the floor so he could cuddle with her. We discussed ways to deal with Bubba being afraid of the hardwood floors, and she thought it would be a good idea to put rugs down everywhere for him, and suggested getting some inexpensive ones from Amazon. We needed something quicker, so I thought to use pee pads, and did. I moved the rugs strategically closer to the beds, and then put down a chain of pee pads between each rug and bed, That allowed him freedom of movement though the whole house, to all beds, and to the food and water dishes. The place looked rather ridiculous, but it worked.
Hillery had gone out to get her dinner and pick up something from CVS that he could walk on. I texted her while she was out, telling her to just get her dinner – the pads were working, so she didn’t need to buy anything else.
My only concern was that the guys would randomly pick a pad to use for the bathroom, but clean up would be the same in the hall as anywhere else. All that mattered in that moment was Bubba being able to live in his home.
Bubba took some time getting used to the pads as a walkway, and paced around uncomfortably, but at least he was moving. Once he felt comfortable with that, he started stepping off the pads a little, and then a lot, until he was walking around the whole house, often walking right alongside a series of pads without walking on them at all. In only about an hour, he was acting like he’d never had any issue at all. I picked up all of the pads and put them back to be used as pee pads again, before I left for the evening, as they weren’t needed anymore.
I started getting things done, mostly things I needed to do yesterday that got derailed because Bubba needed help. I had left half of the packages in the back of my car after the UPS Store run, so I brought those inside.
Bubba had moved himself into a bed in the bedroom, and was now imprisoned in there. I noticed that the pee pad in the bathroom was still unused – more disturbing. Bubba had stood up, paws on the edge of his little bed, whimpering. I saw down on the edge of the people bed. Buddy had come in, and came over to get attention – perfect timing, since I wanted to use the jealousy thing to get Bubba to come out again. It didn’t work this time. I looked out the glass door and saw that Bubba had peed on the pad outside – a big relief. He had taken drinks from both water dishes this morning. If he’s drinking and peeing the system is working correctly. I’m not seeing any signs of declining physical health at all in him.
I had watched Bubba, hoping he’d get over his self-imposed lockdown on the carpet, but he wouldn’t. So I tried coaxing him out passively with some jealous. I sat down on the floor on the first side of the opening to the kitchen, next to the dining room. I called Buddy over. Bubba saw Buddy getting attention and was not happy about it. It took a good 10 minutes, but he had to get some of that attention, and he slowly made his way across the floor to get to me.
I felt like I had rushed the sitting outside the day before, thinking that once he sat down and saw that nothing ate him, he’d instantly be fine, and kept sliding further away from the front door – to ease him out. But he had gotten anxious and went back inside, and then inside started to bother him. So today I just sat, and didn’t move. He had me petting him, sitting next to me, and often trying to crawl up into my lap. He would put his front paws up on my leg, but not finish jumping up. I didn’t disuade him from getting into my lap, but I didn’t want that, either. The point of the exercise was to get him comfortable with the floor.
Once he got comfortable, he wandered off a little. He would walk 3 or 4 feet away, then get tense and come back to me. That was fine. I was in no hurry to be anywhere. Little by little his range increased, and he stopped coming back to me. He still looked uneasy, but he was moving around the whole house.
Someone outside had come out to get in there car to go to work (probably). Buddy reacted to them, running to the front door to start barking. Bubba forgot that he was afraid of the floors, and joined in, running to get to the door, his feet sliding all over the place as if he was trying to run on ice.
I was wrong – the nails are a major problem. We’ll try and get that fixed today.
Bubba had reset back to his fear state inside, but the issue inside really could be the nails.
Buddy wanted to walk, and we did. It was a quick bathroom break by the mailboxes run. Bubba was in the fireplace bed when we left, exactly where he was when I left the night before. I was hoping he’d be at the door when we got back, but he hadn’t moved.
I checked for accidents, and found that both pee pads were untouched – not a good sign. I went to the kitchen to get the day food ready, and I heard 6 feet on the floor. Bubba had gotten up. I listened to hear if he was going to come all the way to the kitchen, but he didn’t, Buddy did. I gave Buddy a Greenie and then peeked out at Bubba. Bubba had made his way to the rug by the front door, and then had himself locked into his mental cage again. Last night’s “fix” had only been temporary.