As you all know I love exploring the outdoors and climbing the trees and chasing birds and insects. Right now, there’s so much going on outside that it’s really, really difficult to pay full attention to what I’m doing. I can hear and smell so much going on, there’s so many birds in the hedges and bushes chirping away tempting me to chase them and the buzzing insects are coming out to play as well. How lively the outdoors is right now so full of life and happy noises. When climbing though I really should pay full attention to what I’m doing but sometimes, just sometimes I let my concentration lapse.
I was out on my regular walkies with mummy the other day when I heard a tempting tweet from up in the top of the tree so up I climbed to say hello to the little birdie. I was carefully climbing up, higher and higher but then I heard another little tweet so I turned my head towards the noise but then there was another one from the other direction so I looked that was, then mummy made a noise so I looked down, then more chirrups and tweets, I know each one belongs to a little birdie friend so I looked for each one but I was so excited by all the birdies I forgot I was only on a small branch. With each twist and turn I was making to see the birdies my body flexed this way and that and then before I knew it I just walked a bit too far one way and…oh no I thought trying to flick my tail back over the other way to counter balance but it was just a bit too little too late and I was already past the point of no return. I instinctively dug my claws in and held on really tight with my front paws and then over I went!
There I was dangling from the branch but I didn’t panic I reached around with my back legs trying to find something to grip onto with my back paws. When this has happened before I’ve found a little branch to give me just enough to push off from to haul myself back onto the branch. Hmmm I felt around but there was only tiny branches which just bent when I touched them I was going to have to think of something else and quickly. I’m not one to give up or let go and if I can only just pull myself up a little bit I’m sure I’ll be fine. I’ve got the backup of my safety harness to get me down but it’s always so embarrassing as mummy makes such a big deal of me ‘falling’ and never lets me live it down! 🙄
Then I felt something familiar touching one of my back paws, I reached down and realised it was mummy’s coat I could feel, mummy had moved under me to give me something to stand on. I reached out with both paws, got a solid pawing on mummy’s shoulder then let go of my front paws which were just staring to ache with clinging on so hard and plop! Down onto mummy’s shoulder for a safe ride back onto the grass below. “Wow Jenny” she said, “what grip you’ve got in those front paws of yours. I know you would have got down without my help but we’re a team and we do things together.”
What mummy said got me thinking. We’re a team and I already help mummy with her work but what else can I do to help her out. Well, I just love it when mummy does the washing up as it means I get to play the damp hands game but what if I helped her a bit more and just made sure everything was cleaned properly. After all us kitties are known for how clean we are so what better job. So, the next time I heard mummy splashing about in the kitchen sink, I ran along and started telling her that I’d come to help. The only problem was I couldn’t really tell what she was doing from the floor, I needed a better vantage point. Then I had a pawesome idea, I could supervise from mummy’s shoulder, a bit like when we’re outdoors and I use her shoulder as a rest stop when coming down the tree, maybe I could use it to get a better point to supervise from. Now…normally… I stop on mummy’s shoulder whilst coming down and that’s easy as I just step onto her but how to get there from the floor? Then it struck me, I can climb mummy like a tree! I’m an expert climber after all and I can climb anything so why not climb mummy. I’d best be gentle though as mummy has soft skin and no protective fur like I have and I don’t want to hurt her. I can do that though I’m very skilled and so here goes, 1…2…3… Up I go.
Then daddy came along to see what a good helper I was being and gave me a little rub on the head. Then I thought we’ll I’d better make daddy part of the team to so I stepped across onto his shoulder to supervise what he was doing. We hung out for a little bit before he went over the the door scratching post where I could get off and he could give me a good stroke, “what a clever girl you are Jenny” he said whilst rubbing my chin. “Who knew you could climb mummy like that and without leaving a scratch, that’s amazing.”
Sometimes though when mummy is washing up and being lazy, doing it in her pyjamas, she’s not so happy to let me climb her but I still want to supervise and keep her company. Daddy came up with a great idea of putting one of our scratching posts in the kitchen next to mummy so I can still be there with her, keeping an eye on her but without having to climb her.
Jenny’s Story 