Mr. Woton's Wild Ride

Mr. Woton is not normally allowed on the balcony alone. At our last place, he figured out how to jump off our balcony onto a fence (yes, the skinny, narrow top of a fence) that was almost 5 feet blow him. He would then proceed to the ground from there. Well at our new home (a recently purchased condo), we have a second story balcony. It is really more like a second and a half story balcony, since it is at least 5 more feet above the ground than a normal second story.

The first time I allowed him outside on the new balcony, I saw him attempt to walk on top of the railings. Erggg. Not a safe kitty place. Next week, he gets all excited about a cat on the sidewalk below and he walks on the OUTSIDE of the rails. There is about an inch of stucco for our 20lb beast to help him try maintain his balance. Not cool. Okay, so now he is only allowed out while Laura is watering her plants and he is in eyesight.

Ergo, Friday morning- I am outside watching Woton and watering plants. I bring out his cage because I think he can sit in that and I can let the other two cats enjoy the balcony. Immediately, he jumps on the cage, jumps on the rail, I run over to stop him, and as I stick out my hands to grab him... (imagine all this happening in slow motion, and my lips are saying "NOOOOOO") as he jumps off onto the roof.

Well, this would not be too terrible if he could walk across to our neighbors balcony (it would have been a pain, but not too terrible). However, our roof is not designed to keep a cat on it- it is a 45 degree angle roof. The moment he landed on the tiles, he started his decent. There are still claw marks on the roofing if you look carefully. He slide all the way down the roof to the gutter, where he finally caught a claw on the edge, but his butt had momentum and slide right OFF. He dangled there for a moment, furiously twisting his tail around to reverse the process, but alas, the twenty pounds could not defy gravity (but Paul says gravity is only a theory!)

I at this point made a sound not unlike the noise only 2 year-olds can make- the piercing scream they tell you to make to scare off an attacker. For a second I thought Woton was going to rip a nail off dangling the way he was from the gutter. Once he fell though, my next thought was LAND UPRIGHT! and don't break anything and don't run away! I ran into the house and screamed at Paul "OUTSIDE OUTSIDE OUTSIDE!" Then I ran back outside onto the balcony to track my cat in case he tried to run away. Paul managed to pull him from the spiky green leafed plant unharmed. We watched him walk around for a while and were convinced that the only damage was all of our adrenaline levels. Now that he is inside and safe, I kinda wish I had a video of the whole thing, because it was darn funny. Stupid troublesome cat.

One down eight more to go.

Here are some pictures to give you an idea of what he went through...

The 45 degree roof:

He fell to this:

A straight down look: