9 ms·

Swiss Cat Ladders

88 points by howard941 7y ago

sys_64738 7y ago
My cat climbs vertical ladders and has clawed its way vertically up a bed propped against the wall. They are unbelievable climbers. It's just they can't get down sometimes!
- pwg 7y ago
  > It's just they can't get down sometimes! They (cats) unfortunately lack the reversible rear feet of squirrels, so down is rather precarious when all your claws face in the "release the hold" direction as you go down.
  - newnewpdro 7y ago
    Not all cats are unable to down climb, Norwegian Forest cats for example are known to down climb head first. [1] We had the pleasure of housing one temporarily for a couple months. It looked huge but 50% of its volume was wispy fur. Hidden within was a lean petite frame with muscular legs. It was a very different animal from our two other typical mutt house cats, but I can't recall if the claws were organized differently. [1] http://cfa.org/breeds/breedskthrur/norwegianforestcat/nfcarticle.aspx http://cfa.org/breeds/breedskthrur/norwegianforestcat/nfcart...
- gumby 7y ago
  > It's just they can't get down sometimes! You never find little piles of feline bones at the base of a tree. I doubt cats ever climb beyond where they can get down on their own.
  - D-Coder 7y ago
    The bones are still in the trees, until they fall down one at a time and are dispersed. How often do people check trees for cat bones?
  - thunderrabbit 7y ago
    This is what my dad explained to me and is further the reason he never helped me down from trees. I'm super thankful for this; I love climbing trees. (And have never seen cat bones in them)
- stevekemp 7y ago
  I used to have a four-poster bed. My cat would easily climb the vertical posts, and walk around the beams. Nothing worse than being woken up at 4AM by a cat jumping from the beams into the center of your bed, waking you up.
microtherion 7y ago
It's a combination of (a) Switzerland having a high proportion of renters, and apartments being much more common than town houses or detached housing (b) Outdoor cats still being the norm in Switzerland.
- clairity 7y ago
  i really like the corkscrew stairs! we (in california) have many outdoor cats too. disneyland has a hidden phalanx of them for mousing purposes... oh, the irony! however i keep mine strictly indoors for peace of mind. to satiate that desire to climb and to combat ennui, i built simple cat shelves/stairs onto the wall of my spartment using hand-sawn boards and metal brackets screwed into the studs. there are 2 paths up and down and around the corner that gives them a way to relieve the zoomies when they strike. my older cat uses them to sun near the window, while the kitten both runs and sleeps on them (and other untold mischief).
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - Theodores 7y ago
    > i keep mine strictly indoors for peace of mind In the Rest of the World you do have some cats kept indoors the whole time but it is not the normal thing to do. Only in America are they de-clawed, kept inside an apartment for their whole life and not given special 'cat' rights to do things like climbing really 'dangerous' cat ladders. Cats very much have their own patch to patrol. Their home is there for them come feeding time. Despite being portrayed as antisocial they do interact with other cats in occupying this larger territory. In a society where people let their cats patrol their territory it seems cruel keeping them indoors. In a street with lots of cats you would let yours out too. But if all the cats are locked away and not able to roam then you would lock your cat away too. Interesting how Switzerland also has much more cat friendly traffic than what you get in America. Maybe this is why America has become this place where people lock up cats and daren't let them roam freely.
    - 7y ago
cjslep 7y ago
American living in Switzerland: Can confirm there's a cat ladder from the ground up to a balcony down the street. I find the country also really values animal welfare as a whole.
- briandear 7y ago
  If they valued animal welfare, they wouldn’t allow cats outdoors. They are menace to local wildlife and biodiversity. https://abcbirds.org/program/cats-indoors/cats-and-birds/ https://abcbirds.org/program/cats-indoors/cats-and-birds/
  - frickinLasers 7y ago
    Why is this downvoted? There's plenty of evidence. "We estimate that free-ranging domestic cats kill 1.3–4.0 billion birds and 6.3–22.3 billion mammals annually." "may exceed all other sources of anthropogenic mortality of US birds and mammals" https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms2380 https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms2380
    - reaperducer 7y ago
      The birds thing I understand. But mammals? It's mostly vermin like mice and rats. It's not like Fluffy McButtwiggles is taking down a hippopotamus.
      - fian 7y ago
        There are many small marsupials (mammals) in Australia that are predated on by feral and domestic cats. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cats_in_Australia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cats_in_Australia We have a cat that was rescued from a neglectful neighbour. We were shocked one night when it turned up at our back door with a live pet rabbit is had nabbed from a house a few doors away. Thankfully the cat mostly has since caught non-native mice and grasshoppers since (that we are aware of). The best conservation efforts at restoring native animal populations in Australia have been achieved through cat and fox proof fencing followed by trapping, baiting and shooting programs: https://www.australianwildlife.org/sanctuaries/mt-gibson/ https://www.australianwildlife.org/sanctuaries/mt-gibson/
eof 7y ago
We made a ladder (completely uninspired by this which pops up occasionally). This was after moving the cat to an upstairs apt, which had always been an outdoor cat in Vermont. Took him like two months to figure it out, even after terrifying and pissing him off by stranding him in the middle of it. He was a thankful and happy cat when he finally realized his freedom. Ours was uglier than all of the shown above (a spiral staircase around a pvc pipe), but it was a fun project and very rewarding.
- DFHippie 7y ago
  Maybe it's also a Vermont thing. I built a cat ladder for some Vermont cats to get up into my daughter's loft bed. The remaining cat disdains the ladder and just scales the bed.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
somada141 7y ago
Huh I lived in Switzerland for 5 years and honestly I never noticed them! Maybe they weren't as common in central Zurich where I was. That's what happens when you look at your phone when walking, you miss all the cat-ladders!
beenBoutIT 7y ago
The ladders also provide an easy entrance into the house for everything from rats to raccoons, especially while the cats are sleeping.

88 points by howard941 7y ago

My cat climbs vertical ladders and has clawed its way vertically up a bed propped against the wall. They are unbelievable climbers. It's just they can't get down sometimes!

pwg 7y ago
> It's just they can't get down sometimes! They (cats) unfortunately lack the reversible rear feet of squirrels, so down is rather precarious when all your claws face in the "release the hold" direction as you go down.
- newnewpdro 7y ago
  Not all cats are unable to down climb, Norwegian Forest cats for example are known to down climb head first. [1] We had the pleasure of housing one temporarily for a couple months. It looked huge but 50% of its volume was wispy fur. Hidden within was a lean petite frame with muscular legs. It was a very different animal from our two other typical mutt house cats, but I can't recall if the claws were organized differently. [1] http://cfa.org/breeds/breedskthrur/norwegianforestcat/nfcarticle.aspx http://cfa.org/breeds/breedskthrur/norwegianforestcat/nfcart...
gumby 7y ago
> It's just they can't get down sometimes! You never find little piles of feline bones at the base of a tree. I doubt cats ever climb beyond where they can get down on their own.
- D-Coder 7y ago
  The bones are still in the trees, until they fall down one at a time and are dispersed. How often do people check trees for cat bones?
- thunderrabbit 7y ago
  This is what my dad explained to me and is further the reason he never helped me down from trees. I'm super thankful for this; I love climbing trees. (And have never seen cat bones in them)
stevekemp 7y ago
I used to have a four-poster bed. My cat would easily climb the vertical posts, and walk around the beams. Nothing worse than being woken up at 4AM by a cat jumping from the beams into the center of your bed, waking you up.

microtherion 7y ago

It's a combination of (a) Switzerland having a high proportion of renters, and apartments being much more common than town houses or detached housing (b) Outdoor cats still being the norm in Switzerland.

clairity 7y ago
i really like the corkscrew stairs! we (in california) have many outdoor cats too. disneyland has a hidden phalanx of them for mousing purposes... oh, the irony! however i keep mine strictly indoors for peace of mind. to satiate that desire to climb and to combat ennui, i built simple cat shelves/stairs onto the wall of my spartment using hand-sawn boards and metal brackets screwed into the studs. there are 2 paths up and down and around the corner that gives them a way to relieve the zoomies when they strike. my older cat uses them to sun near the window, while the kitten both runs and sleeps on them (and other untold mischief).
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- Theodores 7y ago
  > i keep mine strictly indoors for peace of mind In the Rest of the World you do have some cats kept indoors the whole time but it is not the normal thing to do. Only in America are they de-clawed, kept inside an apartment for their whole life and not given special 'cat' rights to do things like climbing really 'dangerous' cat ladders. Cats very much have their own patch to patrol. Their home is there for them come feeding time. Despite being portrayed as antisocial they do interact with other cats in occupying this larger territory. In a society where people let their cats patrol their territory it seems cruel keeping them indoors. In a street with lots of cats you would let yours out too. But if all the cats are locked away and not able to roam then you would lock your cat away too. Interesting how Switzerland also has much more cat friendly traffic than what you get in America. Maybe this is why America has become this place where people lock up cats and daren't let them roam freely.
  - 7y ago

cjslep 7y ago

American living in Switzerland: Can confirm there's a cat ladder from the ground up to a balcony down the street. I find the country also really values animal welfare as a whole.

briandear 7y ago
If they valued animal welfare, they wouldn’t allow cats outdoors. They are menace to local wildlife and biodiversity. https://abcbirds.org/program/cats-indoors/cats-and-birds/ https://abcbirds.org/program/cats-indoors/cats-and-birds/
- frickinLasers 7y ago
  Why is this downvoted? There's plenty of evidence. "We estimate that free-ranging domestic cats kill 1.3–4.0 billion birds and 6.3–22.3 billion mammals annually." "may exceed all other sources of anthropogenic mortality of US birds and mammals" https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms2380 https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms2380
  - reaperducer 7y ago
    The birds thing I understand. But mammals? It's mostly vermin like mice and rats. It's not like Fluffy McButtwiggles is taking down a hippopotamus.
    - fian 7y ago
      There are many small marsupials (mammals) in Australia that are predated on by feral and domestic cats. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cats_in_Australia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cats_in_Australia We have a cat that was rescued from a neglectful neighbour. We were shocked one night when it turned up at our back door with a live pet rabbit is had nabbed from a house a few doors away. Thankfully the cat mostly has since caught non-native mice and grasshoppers since (that we are aware of). The best conservation efforts at restoring native animal populations in Australia have been achieved through cat and fox proof fencing followed by trapping, baiting and shooting programs: https://www.australianwildlife.org/sanctuaries/mt-gibson/ https://www.australianwildlife.org/sanctuaries/mt-gibson/

eof 7y ago

We made a ladder (completely uninspired by this which pops up occasionally). This was after moving the cat to an upstairs apt, which had always been an outdoor cat in Vermont. Took him like two months to figure it out, even after terrifying and pissing him off by stranding him in the middle of it. He was a thankful and happy cat when he finally realized his freedom. Ours was uglier than all of the shown above (a spiral staircase around a pvc pipe), but it was a fun project and very rewarding.

DFHippie 7y ago
Maybe it's also a Vermont thing. I built a cat ladder for some Vermont cats to get up into my daughter's loft bed. The remaining cat disdains the ladder and just scales the bed.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

somada141 7y ago

Huh I lived in Switzerland for 5 years and honestly I never noticed them! Maybe they weren't as common in central Zurich where I was. That's what happens when you look at your phone when walking, you miss all the cat-ladders!

beenBoutIT 7y ago

The ladders also provide an easy entrance into the house for everything from rats to raccoons, especially while the cats are sleeping.