My cat is suicidal (with photographic proof)

My senior cat was rescued as a paralyzed kitten - she had no use of her hind legs and when I first glimpsed her she was pathetically dragging herself around with her front paws. I scooped her up off the streets of Jakarta and took her to the vet, figuring that it was kinder to euthanize her than let her die a slow, miserable death. The vet said there was a tiny chance she could be saved, so we gave it a try. She mostly regained use of her hind legs, and now she is six. But she walks with a distinct limp and simply doesn’t have the balance that cats are famous for.

Problem is, she doesn’t know that. And she likes to hang out on the dangerous side of the balcony.

She has already fallen at least once that I’ve seen. Nothing spices up the day quite like seeing a blob of tabby fur plummeting through the air to the marble below. Somehow, she has survived so far. But one of these days, either the cat or the wooden giraffes are not going to make it.

Oh, that’s great. Cats, even the ones without limps, are hysterically clumsy sometimes. Hope your fuzzy guy doesn’t take a bad fall.

My stupid cat did the same thing yesterday, except on the porch outside. She slipped but somehow managed to hang on to the ledge with her front paws, and then my friend managed to drag her back in. And then I locked her inside before she gave me a heart attack, stupid cat.

Every cat I’ve ever owned seemed to have this “king of all I survey” mentality. Cuddle your kitty & love that sweetie.

Two thoughts (both facetious – sorry, it’s late & I’m tired): (1) Kitty figures, “even if I fall, one life down, eight still to go!”. (2) Kitty is descended from Viking kitties: http://www.public.asu.edu/~mharp/viking_kittens/VikingKitten.htm

Love, Phil

I have often wondered why goats like to climb to the top of anything nearby that is not moving too fast. Genetic? Learned? Stupid?

A larger field of view, in order to spot potential predators ? In nature I suspect that predators would be more of a risk than a fall.

I live in a busy urban area, so I have a strictly-indoor kitty. And when I moved to a second-floor apartment with a large balcony, I was pleased that Parker could then still enjoy the Great Outdoors.

Within a week he had jumped off the balcony.

I looked over it and saw him, in neighboring bushes, staring up at me with crazy cat eyes and saying, quite timidly, “Shmew?”

He now says the same thing through the balcony screen door.

Stupid suicidal cat.

If I didn’t love him so much I’d hate him.

:stuck_out_tongue:

Our cat Rex, was one of the most athletic cats I’d ever seen. He could jump from the floor to the top of a standard height room door with ease. He would then very carefully drape himself over the door, right legs dangling on one side left legs on the other with his chin on the door. He’d sleep there for an hour or more. Amazing balance. But no common sense. As a young cat I let him out on to our 2nd floor balcony. He began weaving in and out of the balustrades. Then he stopped to scratch his ear and promptly fell off the balcony to the parking lot below.

No cute cat pics or stories here, but the OP’s picture is all kinds of awesome. I wish I had that kind of balcony. And that kind of cat.

Cats love to hang out where it’s warm. When I was young we had a cat who used to like to go inside our fireplace and lie down next to the open flames to take a nap.

Cats is weird.

When I go outside on my fifth floor balcony, I usually strap Daniel the Terrible into his harness (he hates the harness, precious), just to make sure he doesn’t go flying trying to get at one of the birds in the trees out front. Ever since the first time he nearly ran straight into the iron bars after a crow… yeah. :rolleyes:

Our first cat rolled off the upper floor landing in a fit of heat-induced passion. She landed right behind my dad who was descending the stairs with a bowl of soup.

We found out that one of our indoor-only kitties had ripped open a window-screen and was getting out that way. We live in a second story apartment. The only thing I can figure is she balanced on the two or three inch wide window frame and either jumped to the landing and then went down the stairs or dropped down the similarly sized window-frame downstairs. We don’t leave that window open anymore.

In my old house we had a two-sided fireplace that could be approached from two different rooms. My cat loved to go sleep in it too whether there was a fire in there or not. He never did catch fire, but he had to be consistently apprehended and bathed to get rid of the soot, and we would always find little soot paw prints all over our white tile.

Now that we’ve moved to a place with a less impressive fireplace, he displays no interest at all.

We have a suicide kitty, too.

One of our cats has decided that she likes to sit up on the ledge of the opening from the loft that overlooks the family room and scare the crap out of me. GAH! It’s at least an 15 foot drop (The bottom of that window to the left is at 18 feet up and is 3 feet tall, for some perspective). She is so clumsy- she used to fall off the top of the bookcases at our old house.

We caught her eyeballing the window ledge (to the left, again) from the opening where she is sitting in the picture. If she does jump and make it, I have some serious reservations that she’ll make it back to the loft.

Are you living in my old apartment? :smiley:

That interior design looks so familiar. I wish I could go back to Jakarta, even if it would only be for a week or so. That was one of the more fantastic times of my life.

Well, I’m living in a house, so probably not. But there’s nothing like that Jakarta McMansion architecture, is there? Kinda spoils you for real life.

I have watched our cat run down the upstairs hallway, leap without stopping onto the railing and jump down to the living room ( 12-15 feet?) , hit the couch without stopping in stride tear around to the other couch and come to a perfect stop on the rocking chair.

It was amazing to watch.

My kitty hasn’t shown any suicidal tendencies yet, but he’s rather clumsy (he occasionally rolls off of the windowsills), and I’m worried that his friend across the driveway is giving him dangerous ideas. They visit with each other via the kitchen windows. Thing is, the kitchen window of the house across the driveway doesn’t have a screen, so across-the-driveway kitty sits on the two inch wide *outside * ledge to chat with my kitty. Did I mention we live on the second floor? That cat’s gonna give me a stroke one of these days.

You know, you should be spanked for that. That is my all-time favourite anynet goofiness. Luckily, the workday hasn’t officially started, so I get to watch it with sound before I start my day. Of course my cube neighbour is asking what the heck I am listening to right now.