I feel so guilty... My gerriatric cat was being daring again and sat on the windowsill upstairs. I opened the window a bit more to get her in and...She lost her balance and fell off!!! Hit the porch roof and hit the patio. She slunk off...seemingly unhurt. I looked for her allover but she was well hidden.After an hour she came back and got strait into her basket. She had a bloody nose and a bruised face but checked her allover and no broken bones. I rang the vet and they said that i was to watch her for the next hour and ring back if there is any change.

Im quite worried, and a bit guilty for leaving the window open...again.
Has anyone else had this happen and did the cat end up ok???

Originally posted by cruella
I feel so guilty... My gerriatric cat (18)was being daring again and sat on the windowsill upstairs. I opened the window a bit more to get her in and...She lost her balance and fell off!!! Hit the porch roof and hit the patio.

Oops!

I too have a geriatric cat, but she can't manage to get on any window cills cos she's so old and creeky.

Hope your cats ok. Remember they do have nine lives (just as well really)

:)

Aww thanks...she is fast asleep at the mo...sleeping off the shock i think.:(

hello stranger - maybe you should buy it a parachute ;)

Cats generally cope with falls pretty well. According to some research that I read a few years ago, the risk of injury increases for the first 10 feet or so, then decreases after that until about 4 or 5 floors up, when it rises again, but the injuries aren't what you might think.

Leg injuries are more common in the smaller drop falls, but in those which drop further, the most common injury is a broken lower jaw, caused by the chin hitting the ground after landing heavily, as the cat's neck is relatively slender compared to the weight of the head.

This research was done as a collation of veterinary records for the period when much housing was in tenements, so there were many cats with high rise housing, some of whom would inevitably fall off the walkways and balconies (they didn't drop 50 cats from different heights to see what happened, thankfully).

It's a human thing to open windows and a cat thing to investigate them, so don't blame yourself too much.

My cat has had every 'inquisitive' accident that you can think of- overbalancing into an interesting bucket or wallpaper paste, getting shut into and going away in furniture delivery trucks, getting out of the attic window and spending 2 days on the roof before being fetched in 10 houses away, getting under the floorboards and needing sedating so that she could be washed, chasing insects and ending up in the vets after chewing a bee etc etc.

Thankfully she's not done it for a while, but you can't be there 24 hours a day, and you can't live their lives for them. Sometimes accidents are just that- accidents. Forgive yourself and just check out her lower jaw (and hope that she's learned to not do it again.

Many moons ago, Curious, the then incumbent cat at Pritchard Towers, leapt out of an upstairs open window. He used to do this frequently with the living room window, but obviously had a momentary lapse of reason when he tried it from a bedroom window.

On teh way down he hit the washing line and then hit the lawn. Stood up, threw up, then walked off.

He was a little out of sorts for the day but that was all.

The vet gave us the same advice initially, then we took him in for a check up teh following day.

General problems are impact injuries - claws knocked back, joint and muscle damage, possibly broken bones, including ribs, I believe. Because C hit the washing line the vet was a bit concerned about internal injuries.

He was perfectly OK - if rather lacking in dignity - but well worth checking out with the vet.

Hope she's OK!

Joe

Unfortunately my cats don't bother to wait for windows to be opened. A few years back the daftest of mine was chasing something around the garden, straight into the greenhouse then straight outta the window without opening it taking the pane of glass with her..

Cats are tougher than you think :D

I thought Cruella tried to kill dogs and not cats??? :D

PS Hope youre cat is ok!

Yes!

Chins! I knew there was something I'd forgotten!

Lower jaw fractures. Thanks Medusa!

Joe

Cats and Their Nine Lives
We've all heard the saying that cats have nine lives. Even Shakespeare makes reference to this piece of folklore in Romeo and Juliet:
Tybalt: What wouldst thou have with me?
Mercutio: Good king of cats, nothing but one of your nine lives.
There is also an ancient proverb of unknown provenance:
"A cat has nine lives. For three he plays, for three he strays, and for the last three he stays."
But where does this myth actually originate? Unfortunately nobody seems to be quite sure.
The best theory appears to be that it is connected with the cat's great dexterity and its famed ability to "fall on its feet". Cats can apparently survive mishaps that would be seriously damaging to other animals

The one time when strapping a firework to your cat would have been a good thing. It would be like a pet Jetpack. But only if you trained it light the touch paper in mid air. Something I bet even smarty pants cats wouldnt be that good at.

cats and mishaps, eh? It's incredible how many cats get themselves into scrapes.

It's a good job they have nine lives!

I hope your elderly cat is ok, cruella.

This story happened 19 years ago. I nearly lost my too-inquisitive kitten.

I had had a workman at my house, and he'd been into my bathroom, he'd left the loo seat up, and the door open, unbeknownst to me.

I'd gone out shoppipng, with the loo door open....

The kitty, being an inquisitive sort of thing, as kittens are, had gone into the bathroom, and clambered onto the loo, and fallen into the water.

I came back, and found, to my distress, the kitten severely hypothermic, she was soaked through, and in shock, as she'd been too small to climb out of the bowl (I think the porcelain would have been too smooth for her anyway) She was fitting, and mewling in a heartending way.

I seriously thought she was done-for.

I rescued her, and dried her off, and ran in a panic to my neighbours to phone a vet for advice and help.

I knew that, as she was hypothermic, I shouldn't "warm the kitten up" quickly, as that could cause more problems than the initial chilling.

So using my own body heat, and a warm hot water bottle, with the kitten tucked inside my jumper, I brought her temperature up, gradually. She recovered, thank God!

I can look back and chuckle, now, about it, and how absurd it was, that my kitten had nearly drowned in a loo pan, of all places.

But it was very upsetting at the time.

PT

My cat back in Nottm jumped out of an upstairs window once, as it was desperate to go out and play. Just ran off as if nothing unusual had happened. Good job cats always land on their feet ey ;)

Oh I've done this twice, i was tring to get them to come in but they were on the wrong side of the window n fell lol.
They were ok tho, they always land on there feet bless em!

Thanks to everyones supportive messages...:)
She has been asleep all afternoon. I checked her chin after the advice and all seems to be fine. She will be going for a check up tommorow. She has managed to eat a large bowl of biscuits and turned her nose and tail up at the whiskers meat...( Thats quite normal)
...so i think she will survive...and even see her 19th birthday!

Thanks all x

My young cat's done this a few times and then you have to coax her back and she walks backwards across the window ledge, I catch her as soon as I can and it's just as well as one time she did fall just as I grabbed her.

My friend had a cat in a 9th floor flat. The cat one day just ran for the window and jumped out - landed on her feet and ran across the road... she got a hit by a car on crossing the road but that's not the point - she survived the fall fine :thumbsup:

my cat had a fall last night with the late night, last fireworks. hes hurt booth his front ankles and still cant walk didnt fall fare and hes 4yr old and agile as hell. so any fall is a bad fall no mater how high. hope your cat is ok :thumbsup: :thumbsup: