Recliner Danger

We had a very traumatic experience this past weekend, with my son's cat, Blackie, a year old male who has been with us for the past 2 months: unbeknownst to us, he crawled beneath the recliner while my husband was sitting in it, and as he went to unrecline, realized that something was going on underneath--to our horror, we discovered that Blackie's neck was caught between a couple of metal slats in the reclining mechanism!!! We were all in a state, my husband trying to free Blackie, and having a hard time doing so, and we freaked out, noting that Blackie's body had gone limp, we were afraid we'd lost him. After what seemed like quite a while, my husband got him loose, and I raced him to the animal hospital, which fortunately for us, wasn't too far away. To make a long story short, Blackie survived, amazingly without even any damage to his neck or windpipe, but had to be kept overnight, with oxygen being piped into his glass cubicle. We feel very lucky (despite the huge vet bill) that Blackie made it through this ordeal, without any injuries, and are giving him twice as much love as he got before it happend. I just wanted to alert everyone out there to the dangers involved with a recliner, and to always be on the alert for kitties beneath. Someone else might not be so fortunate.

This is an excellent warning. We have two recliners and have always been aware of the dangers to kitties that love to hang out beneath them so we've been spared the horror you must have gone through with Blackie.

I'm so glad he is going to be OK and not much in the way of damage done. I'm sure he'll be more cautious around the chair in the future.

Add hide-a-beds to that caution. Our RB boy Gryphon felt a need to explore the interior of ours more than once -- was never hurt, but never learned his lesson either, and despite our best efforts to watch for him somehow managed to get in there several times.

I'm glad your boy was not hurt.

I'm glad your kitty was not injured! We have a folding chair-bed that we have to be careful with. Cats like to explore the small space underneath. I know a couple of people with cats and recliners, and it makes me so nervous when they sit up without checking underneath!

I'm glad he's going to be ok. Growing up we had recliners and making sure the cats were out from under them was always important. We tried to discourage them from crawling under there in the first place - but you know cats.

I had a horrible scare earlier. I was shutting the garage door and my outdoor cat Max was trying to walk under it into the garage before the door shut. He came within two inches of getting crushed. I yelled "NO" as loud as I could because I know I couldn't have got the door stopped in time. Thankfully he ducked back out in time. I would have been left with nightmares for the rest of my life if he hadn't.

OMG I am so glad your baby is ok!!! I would have been terrified. I have a sectional sofa that has two reclining sections and my cats always crawl under there like they are going to Narnia or something. I usually just leave them up until I see both of them somewhere else or if I have company I tell them to make sure they see both cats before putting them down.

Thanks for the post!

=\\ I have a friend who wasn't quite so lucky.. Recliners are dangerous! I'm never going to have one.

Cats have a habit of climbing up and underneath recliners. I have heard sad stories with cats losing their lives or limbs to these chairs. They even can climb up into the stool and hang their with their claws when the chair is being elevated. We have recliners, but we keep a can of compressed air near the chair and before we either use the stool or lean back, we shoot a burst of air under the chair to startle cats. They don't even go near the base of the chairs anymore.