Dad here today.
I left Jerry out of his room this morning. Rather than waiting for me to walk down first, he actually BEAT me in getting to the kitchen first!
Later when he was up in the living room, I opened the pantry door, which the entire Pride recognizes as the signal for treats. Whenever I do this, Jerry is almost always the first there and today was no exception. He flew down the stairs so quickly that one could easily be forgiven in thinking for a moment that he still retained all four of his legs.
While he’s still sizing up how to jump atop the wine boxes he uses as a perch in the kitchen, he hasn’t quite managed to figure it out. That said, I could definitely seeing him doing whatever Cat Math they do to determine how to gracefully leap onto something.
I’ve began to notice that as far as mobility is concerned, Jerry acts as if his leg is still there. For example, yesterday he leapt into the armchair and attempted to cross over the gap between to be on my chair. While his first attempt failed due to a slip and fall (which as near I could tell, did him no harm at all), he didn’t give up.
Directly after he fell, he jumped up on the chair again. Before moving further, I could see him doing the “Cat Math” to figure out how best to get across. Calculations complete, he moved towards me, successfully stepping up onto the arm of the chair and crossing over to mine.
He then put his front paws on my chest, paused for a bit and then hopped over to me. Directly after, all paws were on my chest and he settled in for a hug and purrs.
At that moment, seeing just how well he’s adapting to his new realities led me to shed more tears of joy. Every day, I marvel at how fully he lives the mantra “whatever”.
Today showed yet more evidence that he’s heading towards eventual mastery of the stairs as he seems to find them a little easier to navigate daily.
Another area of improvement is play. While he doesn’t play often, he does on occasion like to wrestle his brother Tom. Today, he approached Tom in what looked like a prelude to one of their wrestling matches. Apparently, Tom wanted to be chased instead because he took off, with Jerry in hot pursuit directly after. As he returned alone, I presume Tom made it clear he wasn’t in the mood to play after all.
