Pitufa’s steep ladder with 6 wide-apart rungs down our 160 cm high companionway is an insurmountable obstacle for a kitten. Impossible to climb up and potentially lethal when trying to jump down (despite a mount of cushions on the wooden floorboards).
We therefore went out to buy material for a cat tree–not so easy in Port Vila. At first we couldn’t find a tube with the right diameter (at least not 1.5 metres of it, we would have had to buy a whole 6 metre piece of PVC tube for constructions), but then I spotted a roll of foil at a hardware store with just the right tube on the inside, the friendly sales people found one that was already almost empty and gave it to us for free. Score! Then we bought 2 rolls (15 metres each) of jute cord. Christian got out the drill to make a few holes at the bottom of the tube to feed the line through and then he started rolling it round and round–in the end we had to go back to the shop as he ended up using incredible 75 metres for the 150 cm long tube (8 cm diameter).
We put it in place with cable ties to the ladder and Smurfy immediately started scratching his new toy–coaxing him up the tree with a toy was a matter of minutes and he immediately wanted to practice his climbing skills. Hurray!
Going downwards on a pole is a completely different kind of business though, cats want to jump, not climb and turning around first in order to climb properly in reverse is a complicated procedure. That’s probably why so many cats get stuck on trees: it’s fun to climb up and once up they only realise gazing down how high up they actually are…
It took us a week of patiently showing him with clawing fingers where to put his paws, then helping him swing his behind round on the pole and steadying him all the way down, placing his paws firmly on the pole again whenenver he wanted to jump from too high up. After a while he only needed help to get on the pole, then he would put his forepaws in place, but needed a reassuring hand to guide his hindlegs in position and finally he managed to grab the pole, swing his behind over and climb down all the way.
We couldn’t be prouder of our smart Smurfy!!
Fixing the line at the tube
Wrapping up 75 m…
Up is fun and easy
Down is scary
Grab the pole
And slowly down
