OMG it was horrible! He was spooked by the neighbour's dog (I'm not sure of the exact phrase/name, but it's one of the 'dangerous' species) and legged it up the tree. He couldn't turn around to come back down and big ladders and nerves were the only way to bring him down to earth. What a morning! lol

Has anyone else had this trauma?

Yes, but I chose to leave the cat to sort itself out and it did. If they can get up, they can get down. Gravity is a marvelous thing, besides, how many cat skeletons have you seen in trees?

My kitty shot up a tree at 11pm the evening before she was due to be spayed!! She eventually managed to get back down.

Here is a piccie of the tree - after her first escape she is often up there!! If you look closely you can just about see her

http://i169.photobucket.com/albums/u...cture710-1.jpg

One of my cats did this when they were about 4 months old. He had only been out in the garden a few times and was still getting used to his capabilities. I spent ages in the garden in the freezing cold and it was starting to get dark trying to coax him down. He just sat their crying at me. Eventually he took the plunge and half climbed half fell down. His brother who was waiting with me and crying too then decided to shoot up the same tree

Thank goodness that your cat had the sense to run up the tree ~ it would have been much worse had the dog managed to get hold of it.

My OH has rescued 2 of our cats from trees in the past when they were kittens. We left them for about half hour to see if they could make it down on their own first. One of the kittens sat in the tree crying pitifully & as we had to leave for work, we had no choice but to get the ladder out & rescue it. Unfortunately the neighbours were all leaving for work or school runs at the same time, so he soon had an audience & they all clapped & cheered as he made it down with the kitten under his arm! He was highly embarassed.

The other one decided to slither down OH's arm as he reached for it, shredding his arm to pieces. Lots of cursing & swearing involved. Both became very proficient climbers as they grew up.

The problem was he was on an almost vertical branch and he was more than happy to keep going up, but wasn't very keen on doing a 180 degree turn and coming back down again!

I remember when he was a kitten and he used to climb the floor to ceiling curtains to the top and didn't know how to get back down! lol

When we moved to our current house some 20 years ago we had 2 cats - they were both excited to have trees at the front of the house (enormous horse chestnuts). A dog scared the younger up the tree, the elder cat went to rescue him - fell out of the tree into the path of a car!! While hubby took the older cat to the vets I had to try and coax the younger, and now very scared, cat down from the tree. My attempts were futile but a kindly neighbour appeared with a long ladder and rescued him. The older cat was hurt but responded to treatment.

It's usually the younger sillier cats who get stuck. One of my cats climbed the scaffolding at the back of our house when she was a year old, she was small and agile and jumped up from pole to pole, but of course she couldn't jump down onto a scaffolding pole, and we saw her running around screaming on the roof. Fortunately one of our neighbours was a builder and went up a ladder and brought her down in a knapsack

One of my current cats is like Tarzan, climbs to the top of giant willow trees ... I can't look! I just walk away and he hurls himself down of his own accord

One of my cats climbed a tree that was the other side of the back garden wall - on the school grounds. He wouldn't come down despite me trying to coax him with food etc I left him for 24hours then phoned cats protection for advice - they just said to leave him and he'll come down when he's hungry.

Another 24 hours and he came running in the house - I thought that the Cat's protection must have been correct. They weren't - the headmaster of the school climbed up a ladder and got him down!! One of the neighbours saw and told me - I took him a box of chocolates as a thankyou!

If no-one had gone up there I think he'd still have been up there a week later!!

We have three cats and they all like running up the big tree we have in the garden. However a couple of weeks ago one o them went through a dormer window and climbed onto the roof. Our chimney is square and there are four brick size holes on each side at the top so I was horrified to see Buffy sitting in one of the holes! I imagine her toppling down and landing behind the gas fire. However I shook the bag of cat bits and she came down. One of the other cats, Millie, has also been on the roof but she walks along the ridge tiles. We usually close the bedroom door when we open that particular window but the wind must have blown it open and the nosy cats ust have to go and see what's outside.

Our Maine Coon used to walk along the upstairs bannister rail (only about an inch wide) when he was smaller - we didn't dare do anything in case he got a fright! The outdoor cats can regularly be found on the main roof of the house, despite being quite elderly now.