Last night at work, Mike called and he was very apologetic. Phoebe, our door dasher had gotten out and Mike couldn’t catch her to bring her back. There was nothing I could do from work so I told him not to worry about it. Phoebe should be fine and I would find her when I got home.
I did my kitty call out the window and I heard her faintly crying. I called again, heard her cry but it wasn’t getting closer and my heart started to sink. What had happened to her?
Grabbing a flashlight, I went outside and started calling again and listening. I finally found her up the apple tree by the enclosure. She was quite high and to scared to come down. Not knowing if there was a coon nearby that might have run her up that tree, I started to get nervous. It was after midnight not a good time to be prowling around.
The extension ladder went up pretty quickly, but she wouldn’t use it to climb down. Part of the problem arising when people try to “get rid” of kittens early and separate them from mom, the kitten loses learning valuable training skills. One of those skills is that mom hasn’t shown the kitten that yes, you go up a tree headfirst, but you come down butt-first. I have noticed that in the last few years with the big push to bring all cats indoors (which I agree with by the way) even the moms don’t know that this is the proper way for a cat to climb up and down a tree. This means that most cats once they are in the tree, simply do not know how to get down without scaring themselves.
I finally got ahold of Phoebe and scruffed her and on the way down, she panicked and started clawing me. I was about 6 feet from the ground and going to fall off the ladder, so I had no choice but to drop her. She is fine- but I am going to have to pull out all my tricks to get her to stop dashing out the door.
Phoebe was owned by someone who is mentally challenged and abusive towards kittens. She is not all there to begin with- I suspect she has been thumped several times. Dropping her six feet was the least of her trauma but I felt guilty all the same. Even though she could survive that fall better than I could.
This morning, she is distant with me, but playing with the others so she is fine.
Don’t know if you can do this or not, but when my husband had to cut down one of our trees when it died from storm damage, he salvaged one of the large branches that was forked. He nailed the branch securely to our deck for use by our outside kitties. They all “sharpen their claws” on the branch, but they also would climb on it. It was not high enough that they were injured if they fell and they all soon learned how to climb and how to get down in the proper way… All those kitties have grown up now and have all been neutered or spayed and they have the run of our property. They all know how to climb trees AND how to get down without injury, so we could take the branch down — maybe that will be our next outdoor project…
I also have a suggestion about your cat that tries to escape whenever the door is opened: one day I was carrying a couple of newly-washed water pans out the door and our inside cat tried to slide by me to the outside. I lost my balance and spilled water out of one of the pans — and drenched my cat! He has avoided the door ever since. It was totally unintentional, but it did the trick. He was de-clawed when we rescued him from the Humane Society so it’s important that he stay inside always.