My cat doesn't jump

I realize this is a strange thing to be concerned about. My cat will jump in the air to catch an insect or toy, but he doesn't jump on anything high like counters, tables, etc. He is a young cat and in good physical health. He is very active and playful. We play chase games almost every night. He is short, if you can describe a cat as short. When he does get up on the sofa, he is very tentative about jumping. He seems to try to judge it very carefully before he attempts it. Most of the time, he pulls himself up by his claws like my elderly Siamese. I've read that cats learn by watching other cats and was wondering if it is possible that he doesn't jump on things because she doesn't? Before my Siamese got arthritis, it wasn't unusual to find her on top of the refridgerator or on the highest shelf in the linen closet. My parents have an older cat that is blind in one eye, but even she jumps on their counter without thinking twice. The funny thing is, I don't want Speck jumping on the counters, especially since he gets into more mischief than 10 cats combined!

*shrug* Hennessy doesn't jump on anything higher than the couch... I prefer it that way. He's perfectly healthy.

I think it's more of an individual cat thing.

Shareena and Miss Patchwillow are both jumpers. When Shareena was about 3 months old I caught her eyeing the kitchen counter and told her it was too high for little kittens. Two seconds later she was on the countertop and she hasn't stopped jumping since. She may have taught her sister as well. The cat tree is the best investment I've ever made.

Goldy is younger than the other two, but she's more of a climber than a jumper. I don't think I've ever seen her get onto anything higher than the couch in a single leap. The kittens started out climbing, too. They're four months old now and just in the last two or three days I've seen them taking bigger leaps. They still don't quite make it to the countertop. Mostly they end up catching their front paws on the edge and slipping back down.

Originally Posted by laureen227

nice job on your username customization, GoldyCat! what font is that, btw?

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Thanks. You mean you can actually see it? I used Zapfino, which is not on the TCS list. I wasn't sure it would show up for anybody else, but it sure looks nice on my computer.

Your cat may have had a bad experience jumping up on something, and, as Mark Twain pointed out, cats are bad about learning too much about one experience.

I have 9 cats and only about 3 are jumpers, there are a couple of them that, like yours, when they want to jump on the couch, they look like they are trying to calculate the distance before jumping, and its not a high couch. I really only have one that jumps up on something very high.

Harley is very selective about what she jumps up on. She won't jump up on the computer desk unless I'm sitting here, and she doesn't get up on my kitchen counters (thank goodness). She does jump up on the couch to either sit with me or look out the windows, she gets up in the bed, and she jumps up on my sofa table to sit there.

She also calculates a lot before she jumps up on something. It's like she sits there and works out all the logistics of how to get up onto where she wants to go. (Nothing I have is very high, either.) And I've watched her try to get down from the sofa table and she's so careful - she doesn't just leap off, she kind of slides down to the floor, paws first.

Now, when I had Snickers ( ), he jumped EVERYWHERE, no second thought. If there was a place for him to fit his big orange butt (and even if there wasn't), he'd jump there.

Originally Posted by mrblanche

Your cat may have had a bad experience jumping up on something, and, as Mark Twain pointed out, cats are bad about learning too much about one experience.

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This is a possibility, especially for someone who is so inquisitive. He had a bad experience with the bowl of cat grass, since he snuck into my closet in the middle of the night and knocked it over (small bowl, but it made a big crash). Now he acts like he's afraid of the cat grass and even bows up at it.

Nova doesn't jump very high either. She pulls herself up with her front paws. Her front legs are very muscular. I don't know about her back legs... they don't look as strong.

Originally Posted by Going Nova

Nova doesn't jump very high either. She pulls herself up with her front paws. Her front legs are very muscular. I don't know about her back legs... they don't look as strong.

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That's what Speck does. He also walks like a big cat, sort of slinky like a leopard. His shoulders (do cats have shoulders?) are very muscular looking, but maybe it's just because if the way he walks.

Originally Posted by Going Nova

Nova doesn't jump very high either. She pulls herself up with her front paws. Her front legs are very muscular. I don't know about her back legs... they don't look as strong.

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I noticed that with Harley, too. I can see all the muscles in her shoulders and down the upper part of her forelegs. Her back legs don't look as "sturdy" for some reason, though.