Dorothy Wandruff got me onto cat parkour! She showed me a compilation of videos someone had spliced together of examples of the impressive parkour cat at work.
So what is it and what has it got to do with cat declawing? The word "parkour" comes from French "parcours du combattant" - obstacle course. The word "parcours" means "course" in English.
So, "parkour" is a derivation from the true French word. It is used to describe the people, very athletic people who like to climb over, and generally navigate through urban obstacles that the average person would never consider possible. You might have seen them on television. It takes courage, skill and strength for a person to be a "traceur" (a person who practices parkour). The French word "traceur" means to leave a trace. As indicated it started in France.
Although the human has to be pretty special to be a genuine traceur, nearly all cats can do cat parkour. What do you call a cat doing parkour?!
This is because they generally have stunning athletic abilities and those all important claws. In the videos I have seen of cat parkour 95% of the what the cats achieve is only possible because of the wonderful cat claw. They are a fantastic part of the anatomy that are so strong and adept at clinging on to anything that can be penetrated by them and that includes rendered walls.
All of the awesome climbing demonstrations of cats climbing sheer, vertical walls are on coarsely rendered walls or wooden walls. The usefulness and effectiveness of the claws are backed up by great strength, a flexible skeleton, super efficient fast twitch muscles and agility (cat anatomy).
The parkour cat should remind people who are thinking about declawing their cat of the importance of cat claws. They are completely integral to the cat's life. They are not surplus to requirements; something we can discard.
The cat package of skills is demonstrated in cat parkour. It is pure showmanship but for the cat it is all in a days work. It is like walking down the street.
Not all cats do great cat parkour. Some just got a bit too fat and lazy! But all are able to do it and the ones you see in the videos are lithe, slender, fit and youngish I suspect.
Here are two videos. I have embedded two because people remove them from YouTube and that leaves a black screen. I don't get to know about that. If one disappears, the other should still work. Enjoy.
I have one slight reservation about the parkour cat. Cats are not perfect. They make mistakes. Some fall.
There was a raccoon I think that scaled a very tall building somewhere, and it was on the news. There was no way to rescue him and it was quite the drama waiting to see if he would make it to the top. He did and was taken into custody.
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I hadn’t seen cats scale buildings before. It’s good to remember this ability when a cat goes missing. My friend says he cat is safe outdoors because she has a 6′ fence. He’s about 3 years old, and has gone missing before, in another house, but returned after 3 days.
Now, I’m also remembering when I used to sit outside, with Mitzy, a couple of years ago, that she scaled a fence, and jumped onto a roof, chasing a bird.
Now, she’s confined to the porch, which has wire enclosing it. If she does jump up to get out, it bends towards her, preventing her from jumping over. I’ve seen enclosures on Jackson Galaxy’s show, that have wire bent toward the inside, which prevents the cat from getting out.
Mitzy has a sleeping spot on top of my closet, and she has to scale the wall from my dresser to get to it, which is about 6′. I’ve put blankets and a rug up there, so she has secure footing and can pull herself the rest of the way.
I knew that if she slipped, she could fall and possibly get hurt.
My friend’s older cat, who’s 16, can still leap straight up from the floor of his shower, to the window ledge. I was pretty amazed when I saw this. There’s nothing to cling onto with slick tile. I’ve also seen her outrun a dog, and leap up to a 6′ fence. Even at her age, she’s still sleek and athletic. Not a pure breed, with any distinguishable markings. Short haired, striped tabby.
They are true athletes, with amazing strength and agility, but as you say, they still make mistakes and get hurt with their acrobatics.