Cat and radiator - horrid accident

Slinky

Just thought I'd tell you what happened last night with my cat.

Yesterday evening I was sitting in the office on the computer when all of a sudden my poor cat started screaming. He'd been in a horrid fight with another cat a couple of days before and I honestly thought this cat had got in and they were having a scrap.

Dashed into the lounge and poor Merlin had obviously slipped on the way onto or off of the windowsill and had a toe on his back right foot caught in the little grid openings on the top of the radiator. He was completely hanging from the radiator by his toe

Seeing him thrashing I thought I'm going to get cut to ribbons so I grabbed a throw off the chair and chucked it over him. He dug his claws in and I was able to lift him up and his toe became free.

He was limping a bit afterwards and was very quiet for a while, you could see him sitting there just swallowing.

You wouldn't believe now that it had happened, their tolerance for pain and quickness of recovery are amazing, but having said that he hasn't been back near the window since, and it's his favourite spot for sitting looking out the front of the house.

I'm going to have to look and see if we can get some sort of cover for the top of the radiator, I don't want that happening again. It's one of the new ones we had put in last year. The old design panel radiators it couldn't have happened on. When you look at the design of them the slots are the perfect size for a cat toe to slip into. Don't really want to put a shelf over it, but will have to see what else we can find.

I was telling somebody else about this earlier, they said the same thing had happened to the cat belonging to her neice and it had to have its toe amputated. She thought it was a freak accident, but having heard about my Merlin she's wondering if its more common than we realise.

Buttonmoons

That happened to my cat too!!

The top of my radiators have those little rectangle gaps all along it, and my cat was doing the same, walking along, slipped and her back foot got caught in it. OH grabbed the cat (I bet he wishes he didn't) as she was freaking out and shredded him to pieces, she was fine 2minutes afterwards but I'm not sure if she lost a nail or what as she doesn't like me inspecting her feet but at the time I'm sure there was a missing nail.

My cat still walks along the windowsill, but we have a cat tower at one side so she walks onto that when she's had enough of being nosey out the window.

Hope your cat is okay.

puddy

my mum and dad's cat had an accident like this recently, they were really upset about it but it was the kitchen drawer handle that oscar got his foot caught in, he isnt allowed on the worktops so when he's up there (all the time) and my mum comes in, she shouts at him to get off, so he jumpted off and got his back leg caught in the drawer handle. she said he was limping a bit afterwards but they both really worried about whether he could break it if he does it again

hethmar

You could put a little shelf or something over it?

loulou123

My cat did a similar thing, but she managed to get one of her toes caught between the slats on our blind, when it was shut luckily we were in the room when this occured and were able to release her very quickl, with only a tiny scratch on her toe.