We have very tall old trees behind our gardens here and when Jozef was only around 10 months old he ran up one, he kept going until he was about 30 feet up then sat perched on a branch looking down at me. I was frantic! We had trees at our old home too and our cats had often gone up them but never so high.
I phoned my sister and late brother in law to come and stay guard while I tried to borrow a long ladder, but they just got here and Jozef decided to come down. He made it look really easy, but he has never been up so high again in his 11 years thank goodness lol
I’d have paid the Fire Brigade to get him down had it come to that.

Hi Michael,

Ruth is right – not many domestic cats realize that they have to go down while facing up.

Instead they would rather run down while facing down or jump.

Jumping is no problem when they are only six feet up in a cat tree and they can jump down onto the sofa.

The problem is that they can end up 20 feet up or more when they climb a tree. That’s too far to try to run down or to jump from. They seem to realize that once they get up there and are rightfully afraid to descend.

Some never learn and keep getting stuck high up in a tree. Some probably get so scared they don’t climb up a tree more than 5 or 6 feet before they jump off.

I think you might be on to something when you said, “The only answer is because they are domesticated and have lost their skills.” in reference to getting down from a tree.

That could be. It would be difficult to come up with a better reason.

Luckily, our cats have never been treed but I’ve seen neighbor’s cats stuck up pretty high. They don’t come down.

Thankfully, the Fire Department did come and get them in each case.

Since the Fire Department rescues children when they get stuck up in a tree, there might be an argument for them to be ethically and perhaps legally obligated to do the same for a cat.

After all, it’s far less risky than rescuing someone from a burning building. Relatively speaking, I’d say it’s a reasonable risk to save a cat from a tree – especially since they are trained for that type of rescue and they have much better equipment for the task than most private citizens.

I think private citizens would get hurt too often if they attempted to perform the rescue. That would be another tidbit for the argument in favor of the rescue. The Fire Department, Police Department, and the Military have legal obligations to reasonably protect citizens. I’d say this falls under that cat-egory (meow).

But I’m open for a good debate 🙂

=^-^= Hairless Cat Girl =^-^=

Monty seems to have difficulty understanding that he can’t go down trees head first. He’s ok if he goes straight up the trunk. But once he sits on a branch he can’t figure out to go down backwards off of it. He has a few trees in the back which are not off limits and he can get out of them. He jumps for the most part, from greater heights than I’d like to see. He isn’t going to get injured, but over time it could be like a repetitive stress injury. That vet I interviewed about cat rehab said not to make the assumption that only declawed cats get arthritis. If a cat is frequently jumping from heights and is overweight, he can develop arthritis. That’s Monty on both counts. Sometimes he races down the trunk of a tree and leaps away at the bottom just before he’d face plant into the ground. It’s quite a sight to see. Once in awhile, out of the blue, he’ll back down the tree from a branch. Why doesn’t he do that all the time? I think he is stubborn.