Mindful Monday – Cats in Trees

First I’d like to thank Lori at Escape With DollyCas for arranging Olivia’s amazing blog tour. She kept us hopping from stop to stop. We had fun and, yes, book sales were up. Thank all of you who participated and who visited the blog stops. I hope you enjoyed the 10-day journey with us.

Today I want to feature cats in trees. As you know, I do this every once in a while. You may also know that I like to photograph cats out of doors. Since our cats stay inside, I stalk neighborhood cats, and I take pictures of cats I see while I’m out walking. I get a thrill when I see a cat in a tree and I’ll almost always try to capture that cat with my camera.

As most know, cats are excellent tree-climbers. Yes, they can scurry up the trunk of a tree quite expertly, but when it comes to climbing down, that can be a different story. Cats’ claws aren’t built for the climb down a trunk. Some cats will come down if left to their own devises. Others need coaxing—and that doesn’t mean a crowd of people shouting directions, but maybe a treat or the cat’s favorite food left at the base of the tree for enticement.

If possible, you might go up after the cat, but don’t be surprised if she sits on a branch watching you make the climb, then just before you get in position to grasp her, she scampers down on her own. It happens.

I saw someone climb up a tree once to rescue a young cat who had stealthily run up a tall tree and then suddenly developed a fear of heights—or so it seemed. He did reach the cat, lifted her off the limb, and attached her to his leg for the climb down. She actually held on with all of her claws for the ride down. She didn’t climb that tree again, but there was a smaller tree in our backyard that she loved to climb—a plum tree. Dinah would see that tree and run full speed across the lawn and up into the tree. Such fun. She could leap back down from the branches—no worries. One day, however, we decided to take that messy tree out. Dinah didn’t notice until one day when she got a burst of energy and ran across the lawn toward that tree. She stopped abruptly where the tree had been and looked around obviously confused. I got a laugh out of that, but I don’t think Dinah was too happy that day.

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