I always heard they couldn’t climb backwards because their claws and non-rotating paws (like squirrels can rotate their lil grabbies and climb any direction) but after seeing my brain damaged cat climb backwards down a floor-to-ceiling cat tree I now know that to be false.
Well, climbing down facing down and climbing down facing other directions may be the difference there. I’ve never seen them face down when climbing down, but I have seen them face a lot of other directions. It may require ripping of the trees or there claws to make it happen. I’m no expert, though.
My parents’ orange used to try climbing down face down and we had to help him get unstuck twice because of this, although I’m sure he could have climbed down or even fell unscathed since it was not very high. He eventually got to use the shared braincell and now he climbs down from the same spots with zero issues (face up)
I always heard they couldn’t climb backwards because their claws and non-rotating paws (like squirrels can rotate their lil grabbies and climb any direction) but after seeing my brain damaged cat climb backwards down a floor-to-ceiling cat tree I now know that to be false.
Well, climbing down facing down and climbing down facing other directions may be the difference there. I’ve never seen them face down when climbing down, but I have seen them face a lot of other directions. It may require ripping of the trees or there claws to make it happen. I’m no expert, though.
My parents’ orange used to try climbing down face down and we had to help him get unstuck twice because of this, although I’m sure he could have climbed down or even fell unscathed since it was not very high. He eventually got to use the shared braincell and now he climbs down from the same spots with zero issues (face up)