We once saw a cat at the top of a telephone pole, mewing loudly. My brother got a tall ladder and started climbing. When my brother was about halfway up, the cat jumped.
The cat scampered away, apparently unharmed.
I don’t think “real” cats would ever get stuck. Indoor cats or cats that don’t go out much may get stuck.
My cat was indoor/outdoor and it learned slowly how to climb a tree. It would have no issue climbing up and on the way down it would lower itself and jump. Sometimes from as high as ten feet, she seemed to know what she was doing. She also would, as one poster describe, hug a tree" and slowly lower herself down the tree. She could get quite high and climb down hugging the tree very slowly.
I think a cat has a normal ablity to climb and get down any tree, but too many cats are indoor or don’t ever learn so they climb up and get stuck.
Cats have to learn things. I think it is so funny when you have kitten that don’t know how to use their claws yet. My cat, when she was a kitten some how managed to put her right front leg over the back of her head and get the claws on that right front paw stuck on the couch. Then she couldn’t figure out how to release her claws, so I had a kitten who’s head was stuck because her right front paw was over the back of her head on the left side.
When I was a kid, we had a cat that would always get way up in the tree and couldn’t get down. We would just take a big ball, like a dodgeball, aim, and throw. That cat always came down pretty soon after that. The solution comes from my New Yorker bookmark, though, which has a picture of a cat up in a tree on a cellphone with the caption, “I’ve done it again.” Give all cats phones so they can call for help!
that should only work up to a certain height or if the tree is not completely vertical. it is essentially falling with style.
i can’t picture it. surely you don’t mean like a squirrel?
My mother was once walking a cat on a leash and harness (not a collar, thank goodness) and allowed the leash to slip from her hands when a dog barked. The cat (a very young one we were cat-sitting) ran up a very tall tree, trailing the leash, and eventually went out on a branch and got the leash wrapped around the branch pretty tightly.
At which point, she fell off.
End result was a leash dangling from a high branch, with a yowling cat, suspended in harness, swinging like a Christmas ornament in a breeze, all four feet waving around in empty air.
We called the fire department, and the ladder truck came out, and the ladder didn’t go high enough (this was a big sycamore). So the fireman went up as high as he could, and took a tree pruning tool, and pushed the cat over to the trunk so she could grab on, then cut the leash.
The cat promptly ran another couple of yards up the tree and got the leash end stuck again (wedged in a branch joint, maybe).
So the fire department went home.
I suffer from moderate fear of heights, but someone had to go get her; she couldn’t free herself. So I took a flashlight (it was now deepening twilight) and a sack and started climbing. Waaaaaay up. Eventually I found her. Stuffing the flashlight into my pocket, I unclipped the leash and grabbed the cat by the scruff and…well…you see the problem. It’s damnably hard to stuff a cat into a sack when you’re on the ground; try doing it when you’re using everything but one hand to cling to a tree. I could NOT let go with my left arm.
Meanwhile, my legs were starting to get weak and shaky from effort and from my phobia.
Kitty was all claws waving in every direction and snagging in my arm.
What to do?
I could still make out people on the ground. I yelled down to go get a blanket and get ready for a fireman’s catch.
Several people came back holding the corners of the blanket. As a test, I turned on the flashlight and threw it down, figuring that if the bulb didn’t break, the cat wouldn’t. The big danger was hitting a branch on the way down. Success! Flashlight bobbed down in the blanket for a moment, and was retrieved still shining.
So I very carefully reached the cat around the trunk so that I could use both hands on her while wrapping my arms themselves around the trunk, and carefully pried all her claws out of my arm and clothing, then turned and dropped her down between the branches.
Kitty plunged, keeping her feet spread out, but she didn’t tumble or hit any branches. FOOMP into the blanket…and a moment later she walked nonchalantly off the blanket, tail held high, and was scooped up.
I struggled down the tree, shaking and scratched.
This thread reminds me of Mark Twain’s story;
““Boys, I had great presence of mind once. It was at a fire. An old man leaned out of a four-story building calling for help. Everybody in the crowd below looked up, but nobody did anything. The ladders weren’t long enough. Nobody had any presence of mind-nobody but me. I came to the rescue. I yelled for a rope. When it came I threw the old man the end of it. He caught it and I told him to tie it around his waist. He did so, and I pulled him down.””
It may not have, yet.
We had a lithe little female who had been taken from mom too soon, and she had this thing about watching other animals really closely and mimicking them, like she really needed someone to teach her what she was supposed to do. Anyway, she liked climbing and heights, and when we moved to a place with tall trees and squirrels, she immediately set out to learn how to do everything they do, and got really good at spider climbing up & down trees, spiraling them as she went, just like a squirrel. I was sometimes pretty sure she was so far up she’d never get down, but down she always got, just like a squirrel.
Oh my God, that is a most excellent story, Sailboat! Thanks for taking the time to share.
Even a few days stuck in the tree could be too much. If a cat goes too long without eating it can develop fatty liver disease, which can be fatal. You’d be hard pressed to find somebody that likes cats more than I do, but they are dumb, dumb dumb. Never trust them to do what’s best for themselves, they don’t have the first clue.
While waiting in the vet’s office, I read the book about cats (featuring an entire clan of cats, two of whom were named Satan and Lucifer, yeah).
According to the book, there are different kinds of cats. Some cats are ground hunters (mice), some are air hunters (birds). You can tell the difference by twirling a smackable toy on the ground or in the air and seeing which it goes for. Ain’t science grand. While they may be taught certain skills by their mentors, they still lean in basic directions on certain skills.
The same goes for trees. The good climbers understand that one must come down backwards, looking over the shoulder. Some don’t get it and come down face first with bad result. Some breeds can swivel their feet enough to come down face first and yet retain claw traction. But what do I know, it was a picture book after all.
Tackleberry: I’ll get him down, ma’am. [click!]
Since there is no fire department in the woods…
Who gets all the wild bobcats down from trees in the forest?
And do they make a sound when they do so?
That might be an excellent story but I doubt it’s excellent advice. Endangering yourself to rescue a cat doesn’t seem a good idea to me.
“Mama! Come quick! … And bring the video camera!”
I think there’s some factor of luck in whether a cat manages to figure out how to climb down. It clearly isn’t strictly a matter of how smart the cat is. My big boy (15 lb.) is, generally, about as smart as Goofy in the Disney cartoons, but he can get down trees. He doesn’t go straight down, but zigzags from branch to branch, or other irregularities if there are no branches, then jumps the last bit. He doesn’t back down (I’m not sure that’s an option for cats). He’s been perhaps as much as 40 feet up, though usually goes no higher than the roof of the 2-story house. I suspect his complete lack of any problem in climbing down may be more a matter of his total self-confidence in his own athletic ability.
PS. Should any bird-lovers be reading, he shows no interest in small birds whatsoever. Roof rats (which are themselves quite a problem for birds) are his main prey.
My cat is currently up in a tall pine and has been there for 2 days. I am 300 miles away from her and cannot help, and though she likes her caregivers, all their efforts to call and woo her down have not worked. She’s too scared. More drastic measures have not worked, either, and there is no arborist or fire dept who will help. She’s too far up for a person to get to her. I’m really starting to worry.
What I don’t understand is, why she and many other cats don’t simply climb down backwards? Raccoons are less equipped for such claw-grappling, yet they seem to have no problem clambering backwards when they have to. I’ve seen baby raccoons do this, as well as adults. So what gives with cats who won’t even try? It’s not nearly as scary as trying to jump from branch to branch when the branches are 10 feet apart!
Really, does someone have a cat psychology answer to this?
Since no other replies:
Is there some way for you to go to that tree within a day?
She may come down for ‘mommy’.
What about those who hunt fish?