Blond Boys Can’t Jump

Jonesie and Kaci

Jonesie is seven months old now. He seems normal in every way, but we’ve begun to notice that he doesn’t jump up on things the way cats usually do. I know that when our other cats were his age, they were jumping up on the counter in the kitchen and any other place to snoop. Jonesie does not jump up on the kitchen counters! I don’t know if it’s because he hasn’t gotten the idea yet, or if he doesn’t think he can do it.

I think he’s fine physically. We do notice that he moves around, investigating things and instead of standing, he immediately lays down. It doesn’t look like there’s anything wrong. He walks around like a little tiger. It’s become so common that although we notice it, we think it’s just so amusing to watch.

He chases Jason or Kaci, jumps on them, wrestles with them, but when Jason wants to get away from him, he jumps up to the top of the entertainment center. Jonesie hasn’t shown any curiosity about it yet. He does come in the kitchen for his nightly snack though. If I’m taking too long for him, he tries to climb up the drawers. Of course he can’t do that.

We’ll keep an eye on him and we may regret that one day when we come in the kitchen, we’ll find him on the counter.

The only other cat who could not jump was Rowdy. He had a good physical reason though. When we got him from the animal shelter, he had ear mites. Back in those days (1989), we had to put medication in his ears for two weeks, take him back to the vet for examination, then two more weeks of medication. In Rowdy’s case, his ear mites were so bad, we had to give him an extra two weeks of medication. He just hated that. When we took him in, the vet looked in his ear and found that the mites were so severe, his ear drum had burst in one ear. That made his equilibrium off balance.

When he walked along the back of the couch, he would fumble, like he was going to fall over. We used to laugh, but it was because he was off balance. When he got older, he didn’t like heights. Unusual for a cat, but Rowdy was special. We never had to worry about him getting up on things we didn’t want him to be on.

We compare the jumping with Taz. He jumped and floated down like a feather.

I don’t think Jonesie has a physical problem. He should be able to jump up on things the normal way that cats do. As long as I know he is healthy, I won’t worry if he doesn’t get on our kitchen counters.

More later.............