Clutzy Cat

I'm wondering if this is something I should be concerned about. Puppy is terribly clutzy. He avoids jumping, so he seems to be fully aware of his lack of grace (and if he wasn't, his faceplant into the window when attempting a 3 foot windowsill jump probably gave him a harsh reminder).

He does jump on and off the bed and couch. He makes a little sound every time he jumps down though. We have a some shelves in front of the bed, so he steps onto those first and then makes the two foot jump down. EVERY time he lands, he makes a little "Emph" sound. I've watched him, and it looks like he tries to jump down instead of out, so he kinda falls on himself. Hence the "emph". He makes no sound jumping up.

He's young, so he doesn't have arthritis. Could this be some other medical problem, or is he just not a good jumper?

Have his claws been clipped back? It could be that they are sharp at the ends and when he jumps, they may be sticking him ... just a thought.

No, his previous owner declawed him. For a while, we thought that was why he is so clutzy since he can't grip with his claws. But my other cats could always make a graceful leap onto hard surfaces like the countertop; Puppy can barely jump on the windowsill even when he uses the furnace (only 2 ft high) as a boost to get up. And this certainly doesn't seem like it would affect his ability to jump down.

Only a doctor can answer your questions, so why not take him in to be examined. It's a little hard to diagnose a strange cat over the internet :-).

How old is your kitty? My youngest cat Sophie was a clutz when she was younger. She eventually grew out of it. We had many a laugh when she would jump and miss the window all together!!!

Has this just started or has he always been this way? If this is a recent thing I would definitly take him to a vet and quickly.

It never hurts to get him medically checked and make sure eveything is ok.

Hope it works out for you!

When we got my new cat Ninja, he was the same way. The most UN-graceful cat ever. We always said he was bad at being a cat. He'd walk along our dresser and just lose his balance and fall off. Or knock things over, or make a jump for something and just completley miss it. It was strange, since my older cat was NEVER that bad lol.

He slowly has gotten better the older he gets. But he still makes some mistakes now and then!

Our big boy Charlie (9 months) is the biggest clutz I have ever seen. He routinely falls off things, trips over his own feet and is a terrible jumper. He has been this way since we got him at 11 weeks old. There is nothing physically wrong with him, he is just a clutz. His "clutziness" became even more apparent when we got our new kitten Casey (about 5 months). Casey leaps around from place to place with all of the grace you would normally associate with cats and Charlie just watches in amazement. Hopefully Charlie will outgrow his clutzy feet, but I'm not holding my breath!

Swanie is a bit of a clutz too, he is a climber and sometimes will come down the hard way. He had a hard time jumping when we first got him (2 months ago), but he's learning, and getting less clutzy. I think part of it that he's just so exuberant he does things without thinking them through. For example, the other day my husband was breaking down a box on the kitchen table. Swanie jumped up and started walking on the broken down box, but he walked right off the end of the table and onto nothing but box. Luckily, hubby was holding that end and I got over there to reinforce or the dude would have ended up on the floor.