In case you ever wondered, cats CAN climb ladders. Somehow this thought had never occurred to me until I walked into the room to see this guy at the top of the ladder staring at me.
Cats can climb pretty much anything with or without a ladder.
Like I said, I’m flabbergasted that somehow this never occurred to me. I guess my brain assumed the awkward shape of a ladder (from a cat’s perspective) would give them trouble and be harder to climb than leaping from floor to surface or surface to surface.
I’ve seen one of mine doing the same:
(She’s the inspector. She makes sure that everything is correct. Which things? Yes.)
She can also go down just fine. I never saw how - I’ve seen her on the stairs and then walking on the floor as usual, but if I’m nearby when she’s on the stairs she meows insistently for help.
I had a cat who would climb a fully vertical wooden ladder both ways to get up into and down from a loft. He used the bars, even, and didn’t just dig into the side supports.
But can they climb down?
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I had one who could jump to the top of the fridge from a dead standstill. (About 6 feet [2m] vertical). First time I saw her up there I assumed she used the counter as an intermediate step. Nope. It was like she just turned off gravity for a moment.
When we found her she was a kitten who had gotten trapped in our garage. Half feral and scared. I swear she was doing 9 foot parkour jumps along the walls when she saw us.
She’s 14 now so she’s slowed down a bit, but she has no issues with a human-chest-high jump.
Cats are neat.
You just reminded me of when I first adopted these cats and I’d “lose” them in my tiny condo only to find them snoozing on top of the kitchen cabinets. Mine used the counters though, and not parkour up the wall to get there.
In addition to getting onto the top of the fridge, mine learned to get into kitchen cabinets. I’d come downstairs in the morning and find her just casually oozing out of the cabinet we keep cups and plates in. “my butt was maybe on all your stuff just now. oh hai. got catfood?”
I love them. Some still have secret hiding spots in our house.
