Thumper Thinks Out Loud

It didn't take long for Buddah to find these cutouts in the wall.

He found them the first night here, after he stopped being so scared and was pulled out of the recliner.

Since then, he spends quite a bt of time hovering above the rest of the room, watching, planning. It was also evident that what he wanted most was to figure out a way to get to that highest part of the wall, where it divides the family room from the living room, with no annoying stops along the way.

Buddah is a fairly smart kitty. Scary smart most of the time; you can see his little brain work as he looks at something and puzzles out how to manage what he wants to do.

He found a way up there. It occured to him that he could walk between the rails by the stairs, balance there, and jump up to that uppermost place he coveted.

The only problem was there was no safeway down that he could see. Balancing on that delicate 2 inch rail was one thing, jumping onto it was another.

On one side of the wall there were bookcases, but they were too far away to feel safe. On the other side there's the entertainment center, but that was a more distant jump than the bookcases.

He paced, and finally walked to the spot he had first landed on, and pretty much asked for help. One short little meow? and the Spouse Thingy reached over the bannister and lifted him to sure footing.

We knew, without a doubt, he would jump back up there, and he would need a way down. So we placed an 8-foot tall bookcase by the stairs, thinking he would just jump onto it, then onto the next bookcase, then the next, and down to the floor.

However...the top of the bookcase is the same color as the floor. So Buddah peered down from his high perch, and could not tell that the bookcase was at a level he could manage. He paced back and forth--and I waited a full hour before helping him, thinking he was just being stubborn--and in the end he had to be rescued.

But this...this shows how much we cater to the kitties:

We covered the top with a nonskid black piece of rubber.

Now Buddah can jump down.

However...it's still a longer jump than looks safe, and he's not terribly comfortable with it. I might even hurt a bit.

Logic says let him deal with it. If he wants up there that bad, he can handle the jump down.

But no...We have several kitty perches we no longer need for windows, so one will go up between the bookcase and the beam, attached right there at the top of the stairs.

We are so owned...