Jumping up or jumping down harder on hind legs?

[TV Dinner]

I'm assuming jumping up is hind leg and jumping down is front legs bearing most of the load correct? I have a cat who had knee surgery and he is at the week when he can start light jumping and got me thinking about this.

Not sure if it's more important for me to give him a lift up if needed at some point or to provide a slow descent down, which is much harder to get my cat to do since once he gets up somewhere he is much less likely to use a gradual decline to get down as opposed to just jumping the whole way. Stairs for example I've gotten him to climb up them but he plops down avoiding them.

 

[di and bob]

Did he have surgery on the hind legs or the front? It takes much less effort for a cat to jump up since they have such powerful muscles in their back legs, jumping down would have a terrific jolt to the front ones. I would try to help him along in whatever he is having trouble with, they sense what they can and cannot do. If he doesn't want to go down the stairs, carry him or encourage him to step down a few and then carry him. Light jumping would most likely be like from a chair or couch, jumping to a counter or table top would be high jumping.

 

[TV Dinner]

Did he have surgery on the hind legs or the front? It takes much less effort for a cat to jump up since they have such powerful muscles in their back legs, jumping down would have a terrific jolt to the front ones. I would try to help him along in whatever he is having trouble with, they sense what they can and cannot do. If he doesn't want to go down the stairs, carry him or encourage him to step down a few and then carry him. Light jumping would most likely be like from a chair or couch, jumping to a counter or table top would be high jumping.

He had surgery on his left hind knee, for patellar luxation. I'm having a lot of trouble keeping him from jumping on things but most of the jumps, if not pretty much all, have been not too big going up, but then he will jump down from higher up. So he may take 2 or 3 increasing height steps/jumps to get up to something then he just jumps all the way down no matter what I've tried and when I've tried to pick him up to put him down he is avoiding me and just jumping anyway. This is what is scaring me, not so much his jumps UP but jumps DOWN. But, as you say, I'm wondering if I shouldn't worry as much about that since it's mostly his front legs seem to take the brunt of him jumping down. Regardless nothing has happened so far that seems to have reinjured anything thank god. It's only been the last 3-4 days he has started to become a real hassle to keep from jumping and I'm about at the point the vet said he can start doing light jumps as it is.

 

[di and bob]

Yeah, all his weight would be on his front legs, but he could twist that back one maybe. Cats are pretty good at judging how much they can do, if he is not jumping up as far, he is doing good. He is sending he has limits.