Conference misery::feline

    Holly, my sister had a cat when she was living in a 3rd floor
    apartment.  He used to go out on the porch all the time until he
    fell off one day and broke his leg.  There were no trees or other
    things to climb on nearby.  To this day he walks with a very distinct
    limp although he is very much an active cat!

    Thanks Cheryl, that's exactly what I'm afraid of!
    
    Holly
    

    
    I truly feel it depends on the cat!!   We had a cat Taffy that would
    sit on the 2nd floor porch for hours and never even think about
    jumping off.   But yet my sister has a 15 year old (Mitzi) who 
    Donna decided that since Mitzi was getting up in age she felt she
    no longer wanted her outdoors...but felt safe letting her on the
    2nd floor porch.  Well Mitzi being the little determined old lady...
    decided to jump off one day!!  Mitzi was not hurt at all.....but
    the porch is now off limits to her!!
    
    Sandy

    Think about it this way - like children, cats go after goofy
    things, they don't know what they're doing or getting into
    half the time until it's too late...would you let your child
    out on a balcony with just railings?   "But they never..." -
    there can always be a first time - don't subject your kittie
    to potential harm (or yourself to potential guilt) - make
    their interior more interesting, or, if you do feel you want to
    give them a "taste" of the outdoors - take them out occasionally
    on a leash (and experience it together!)  I found that when I
    take mine out for a fieldtrip they love pine!  So times like
    Christmas (and when I'm in a florist) I'm always sure to get
    some greenery, etc. - bring it home and set up their own little
    yard area!
    
    C.
    

    Hi Holly,
    
    I heard somewhere that cats don't have depth perception, so they
    may jump off the third floor porch thinking the ground is only
    a few feet away.
    
    Don't take the chance!  Keep the porch off limits.  Have you thought
    about buying some screening or chicken wire and "fencing" it in?
    That might be a good option if the porch isn't that big.
    
    Pam

    Well, I guess I'm one of the dumb ones!  :^)  I let my 3 cats
    (preferably one at a time) go out onto the third floor balcony under
    the watchful eye of mom cat (me!).  Kelsey is the only one who is
    content to lie there and watch the world go by.  Taja wants to jump
    onto the railing ledge, and Herbie sticks his big head through the
    slats to look down on the ground below.  Needless to say, both Herbie
    and Taj don't get much outdoor time, because I wouldn't want them to
    make a sudden move and lose them as a result.
    
    I wish I could chicken wire it in; however, it is an apartment complex
    and I don't think the management would approve.  It certainly would be
    an idea situation for them though.
    

    I should clarify one thing about the porches at my apartment.  Unlike
    some more modern complexes, there's not a railing all around.  It's more
    like a half wall with large posts to the ceiling.  I live in an older
    three decker house.  
    
    Thanks for the advice everyone.  I wasn't planning on letting the
    kitties out without mom's supervision.  If I do end up bringing them on
    the porch, it'll be one at a time!!
    
    Holly
     

    Hi Holly,
    
     I think Pam's idea of enclosing the porch with screen or chicken wire
    would be great. I don't know how big your porch is, but if it's large
    enough, maybe even enclosing part of it would suffice.
    
     Of course you'd proabably be wise to check with your landlord first to
    make sure he/she doesn't mind you tacking it to the porch! ;-) 
    
     I don't know what the cost of this would be either, so that would be a
    consideration.
    
    Yonee

    
    Supervised porch time is probably ok, if you're fast and your cats
    are, uh, "obediant".  But I'd be very wary of leaving them out there
    by themselves.
    
    I live on the forth floor of an apartment building and the balcony is
    railed by an 8" thick concrete slab that's about 3 feet high.  There's
    a 4" opening at the bottom.  The cats (once three, then two, now one)
    love to go out on the balcony and scratch their backs on the concrete
    floor, but they also like to watch the world through the bottom
    opening, chase things like windblown leaves, and jump up onto the
    railing for a better view.  When they did the latter, I would gently
    admonish them that that was a no-no, and take them down.  They
    eventually did it less, but never really stopped totally.  I think they
    figured out it was something they shouldn't do when I was looking, but
    it was ok when I wasn't paying attention.
    
    Anyway, the sliding glass doors to the balcony are at the end of the
    living room, which with the dining area is some thirty feet long. 
    Once, when I had foolishly left both the glass slider and the screen
    slider wide open, to my utter horror, Wabbit, driven by one of those
    "oh-boy-I-gotta-run-like-crazy" fits that cats take now and again, ran
    the full length of the living room and at the sill of the sliders
    leapt the five feet across the balcony to land on the railing.  When my
    heart started beating again, I picked her off the railing muttering
    something like "very impressive, but VERY bad".  She wasn't even proud,
    it was sort of "what's the big deal, this is just regular cat stuff".  She
    never did it again, but I was careful to never give her the opportunity
    again - I always made sure that at least the screen was closed enough
    that she had to slow down to get by it.
    
    Still, a cat's uncontrollable urge to chase fluttering things (leaves,
    and worse, BIRDS, which do frequent balconies even if you don't feed them,
    which I do, because the cats like to flatten themselves and hide behind
    a tuft in the rug to watch them through the glass and make weird little
    barking noises) can be risky.  I left Merlin alone on the balcony one
    morning for just a few minutes and he literally disappeared.  His two
    sisters came right in when I called, but he didn't come out from any of
    his favorite hiding places.  Fearing the worst, I looked all around
    the grounds below my balcony, but there was no sign of him.  I posted
    signs around the building and left for work, assuring myself that he had
    found a new place to hide somewhere in the apartment.  Sure enough, within
    15 minutes, I got a call at work from someone who had seen a cat
    answering to his description hanging around the door to the building.
    
    I rushed home, breaking the land speed record in the process (luckily
    I worked only a few minutes from where I lived), and found him curled
    up at the door.  From a cursory inspection he seemed OK (maybe he had
    had Scotty beam him down?) so I gently picked him up and took him
    immediately to his vet.  I told them I suspected he had fallen 4
    stories, so they kept him for the day, x-rayed him, did a number of
    tests to check for internal injuries, etc..  Nothing.  Over the next
    few days he seemed a bit stiff and wary about jumping, but he got over
    that quickly.
    
    I consider him a very lucky cat, and me a very lucky daddy.  Some close
    friends of ours nicknamed him "Whirlwind", and made the usual sick
    jokes about "Had Whirlwind seemed depressed lately?".  To this day he
    won't tell me what happened or how he got "outside", but he still loves
    to go out on the balcony.  Only under my watchful eye.
    
    len.
       

I ran chicken wire between the posts of the porch, because I was afraid, 
to take the chance they'd walk through.  My guys really love it out 
there.  

Himalayans not being the most adventurous cats in the world, are extremely 
low keyed and I don't even think the thought of jumping up or off has even 
occured to them.  And as for chasing after birds... Well, I never heard of 
such a primative thing, it would mess up their coats, and it might cause 
them to wake up and burn a calorie, they couldn't have that... 8-)

So I guess it depends on the cats.

Valerie  

    Not 1 of my 6 would hesitate to launch themselves off
    a porch! (;
    
    It would be raining cats if I was on the 3rd floor....

    
    Re: .10  Seems that Ms. Sammie has a tough time getting her butt off
             the floor to get to anyware.... ;'D
    
    
    

    Re: .10  Seems that Ms. Sammie has a tough time getting her butt off
             the floor to get to anyware.... ;'D
    
is ms. sammie related to chubs by any chance?  :^)    

    
    
    I guess I'm pretty lenient also.  I let my 3 cats out on the porch and
    keep an eye on them by looking outside extremely often.  Two just sit 
    there and, although I keep the porch
    door open so they can come in and out as they wish, two tend to prefer
    to stay inside.  The third one likes it outside and will, every once in
    a while, jump up on the railing.  I am constantly checking on them. 
    They know they are not supposed to go onto the railing.  When the third
    one does, (which is not very often) and I catch her, I yell her name 
    and she comes plummeting down and runs into me rubbing against my leg 
    to apologize.
    
    I guess it depends on the cats.  Mine just sit and watch the birds on
    the trees outside.  They make funny noises.  If I notice the birds are
    bugging them, I'll bring them in.  Don't want to take too many chances. 
    Haven't had any problem since I moved to my third floor condo.  when I
    lived on the second floor, they all took the plunge, once, however,
    luckily, none got hurt.  It seems like mine have some type of depth
    perception.  But I'm no expert!
    
    FWIW
    
    Michele
                                               

I read The Cat Who Came For Christmas (by Cleveland Amory - I think!) and in it 
he describes how he kept a cat (the title cat) in an apartment with a chicken 
wired balcony. Perhaps you could refer to that for hints & tips!

Andy

    Andy,
    
     You beat me to it! I was just going to refer to Cleveland Amory's book
    also! He enclosed at least part of his (I think) fire escape balcony by
    enclosing it in chicken wire so Polar Bear could go out and get fresh
    air and watch the pigeons. The entrance to tjis was the bedroom window,
    as opposed to a door.
    
    Yonee

    Getting off the subject of porches for a minute.
    
    Do any of you have a loft in your home?  I am renting an apt. with a
    loft that overlooks the living room.  It has a balcony type railing
    going across it.  Well, Taja has taken a liking to walking across that
    railing, piroueting every so often and basically acting like a little
    kitty gymnast.  Several times he has lost his footing, and as he starts
    to slide off (of course toward the living room side, not the loft
    side), he quickly hooks his front paws over the railing and sort of
    hangs there with this "I meant to do that" look on his face.  I swear
    he has scared me to death each time he walks that railing like a
    balance beam, so I have begun to scold him when he does it.  He is
    beginning to get the hint that mom doesn't approve, but once in awhile
    when I'm not paying enough attention to him, he will get up on the
    railing and start walking across.
    
    I am seriously thinking of chicken wiring the loft in!!
    
    -Roberta
    

    re .17 - The same friends of mine who nicknamed Merlin "Whirlwind" have
    their own kitty now, a brown tabby named Rufus Johnson.  They have a
    loft in their home, and Rufus likes to sit on the railing (he
    especially likes to perch "kitty korner" across the corner of the
    railing) and catch things tossed up at him.  He's up about 12 feet
    above the living area floor, and once he fell, but I caught him...
    Fun for all.
    
    Now, I probably shouldn't spill this, but Rufus also has a bizarre, uh,
    affection for foam lizards (he's got 3 of them, named Helen I, II, and
    III).  They're one of the things he likes to catch from the loft
    railing.
    
    len.
       

    Yep,
    
    I lived in a renovated barn with a loft that Linus loved because he
    would jump from the loft over to one of the beams which were 12 ft.
    above the living room and were only about 1 ft. wide.  There were
    several and occasionally he'd jump from one to the other.  He caused
    me many heart attacks 'cause he'd sleep up there.  He did fall from
    there too, but never did get hurt.  They love to be up high...
    
    Di & Li & Lu

According to last year's PBS special on cats, "Caressing the Tiger",
studies of cats that fell from apartment high-rises show that the higher
the fall, the greater the cat's chances of survival, probably because
the cat has more time to right herself and prepare to land.

    Cats right themselves pretty quickly - within a matter of feet.  I
    thought the reason they survived long falls better than short ones
    was because
    
    	1) after some distance the cat reaches "terminal velocity", where
    	   the drag force (wind resistance) on the cat equals the
    	   gravitational force (weight) so the cat stops accelerating
    	   (doesn't fall any faster), and
    
    	2) longer falls give the cat time to "relax", making their muscles
    	   and skeletal systems more able to cope with the stress of
    	   impact.  I.e., a rigid cat breaks more easily than a limp one.
    
    The latter factor means that above some height the cat's more likely
    to be relaxed and sustain less serious injuries, the former that above
    some height the additional height doesn't make any difference!
    
    I'm former aeronautical engineer, and "terminal velocity" is a well
    understood, very commonly seen aerodynamic phenomenon.  The terminal
    velocity of a spread eagled human being is around 120 mph; I don't know
    the terminal velocity for a cat, but it depends on their ventral
    (belly side) area and their weight.  These determine an aerodynamic
    parameter called the ballistic coefficient, or "penetration".
    
    Merlin was lucky enough to fall on thick grass after an overnight rain
    fall, which considerably softened his landing.  My vet also said that
    most of the cats they had seen injured in falls had badly broken jaws
    and skulls, due to the fact that once they get righted, when they hit
    the ground their legs splay out from under them and they take the first
    serious impact on their chins.
    
    In any case I wouldn't wish this on any cat, so take our advice and if
    you have cats way up high, watch them.  They like up high, and they
    like to jump, and that's a dangerous combination. 
    
    len.
    

    I think you are correct, Len.
    
    Years ago, my cat Kelsey scooted out an open window my husband was
    washing, and proceeded to jump from the second floor roof onto the
    driveway.  He landed splay legged and ended up cutting his chin. 
    Nothing serious, but it certainly gave me a scare!