When I wrote the post about my first walkies I said there was a tree that one day I would climb, well, I didn’t lie to you, I did climb that tree. 😺😸🌳
Every time I went out for walkies with mummy I had a good sniff round the tree, I felt up the tree trunk as high as I could with my back paws still on the ground. I found out as much as I could about that tree every time finding out a bit more until one day I told myself ‘why am I just pussy footing around, Jenny, just get up that tree’ so up I went, one big jump, I grabbed on with my claws and started climbing. Mummy was so amazed, she she gasped and said “Jenny, you’ve climbed the tree, that so amazing, well done, you’re such a good girl” I was so proud of myself.
The thing is though that what goes up must come down again, being blind means I can’t just look down and see where the ground is and climb or jump back down and I was so excited about having climbed up that I had forgotten to remember how far I had climbed! Hmm this is going to be more tricky than I had first thought, although I hadn’t really thought about the coming back down bit when I thought about conquering the tree in the first place. I now see there was a fault in my cunning plan…well, I’ll just do the reverse of what I did going up, work my way back down paw by paw and surely I’ll find the bottom so back down I went. Then I had a brainwave, all my paws are busy holding onto the tree but if I stick my tail out behind me in a straight line then I can use it to feel when I get near the bottom of the tree. So I stuck my tail out and as I went backwards down the tree the tip of my tail touched the ground and so I knew I was nearly at the bottom, I kept going and then my back paws 🐾 touched the ground and I was back down again.
That was so much fun, I’m going to do that again and again and again! Over the next few walkies I climbed every tree I found practising going up and down climbing higher and higher. I climbed up into the branches, there’s good smells up there of birdies and maybe one day I’ll catch one sleeping up here.
Sometimes there’s so much going on that I just listen from up in the tree, the noises sound different from up here and I get a different view of the world. There’s different smells up here and so I can take my time smelling them and finding out who else has been in the tree besides me. I don’t smell any other cats up here so maybe I’m the only one who can climb the trees, this is my own secret place that only I go to.
Each time I climb a tree I get better and better, I can climb them fast, whoosh and straight up I go, climbing higher and higher (until mummy stops me from going any further). If I want to climb really high and really, really fast I do a big run up first. I run away from the tree then round in a big arch, getting faster and faster until I’m at top speed then over to the tree base and with a big huge jump up I go. Mummy always wonders how I know where the tree is when I’m running so fast but I can smell it, I can hear it and I know where I’ve been. That’s true most of the time…there’s only been once when I got my aim wrong. I did a fast run up and a big leap to go up the tree and just sailed through the air (very gracefully), claws outstretched and then much to my confusion landed back on the ground. I could hear mummy trying (not very well) not to laugh so I just carried on running around like I meant to do that, then I climbed the tree anyway.
I can also climb trees slowly, you might wonder why I would do this when it’s such fun running up them, well I do this when I think there might be something up there that I might be able to catch. If I went running up the tree at full speed the bird would hear me and fly away. If however, I climb up really slowly, making sure each paw 🐾 is placed exactly where I want it to be before taking the next step up I can climb slowly and carefully. I climb up paw by paw, little by little almost silently creeping vertically towards my little birdie prey…. it sees me, gets scared of my big fearsome hunting face and flys off! Silly birdie, one day I’ll get you when you’re not looking.
I love climbing high into the trees, as I’ve said the going up is much easier than getting back down but mummy is always there to help guide me. She taps the branches below me so I know where to put my paws to get back down. Sometimes if I’m really high up mummy holds up her hands and I step on her hands and she grabs hold of me and plucks me out of the tree to safety. I know that as long as I can reach mummy I’m safe. Sometimes though I do make a mistake or wobble the wrong way but it’s ok as mummy always puts my safety first, my harness and lead act as a safety line so if I loose my footing I won’t fall, I just hang rather undignified from the tree whilst the lead gradually lowers me to the ground. I’m glad there was no-one else around to see me when this happened.
Hopefully now you can see why I love 💕 climbing the trees, it’s exciting, invigorating, amazing fun great exercise, I get to feel like I’m on top of the world, even just for a little while. I feel amazing as I can do something none of the other cats that I smell outdoors can do, I am so proud of myself as I can do something that the sighted cats can’t. Who says being blind is a disability? Mummy and daddy certainly don’t think so.
Jenny’s Story 