One day Moochy was in one of her rambunctious moods and was playing around like the kitten at heart that she is. She was having the best time and I was enjoying watching her have so much fun.
That's when it happened...
My house has an open staircase and landing. It has a banister, but there is only a wall on one side. The other side looks out over the livingroom. The carpet stops about 3 inches before the floor and there is a 3 inch painted board under the railing that goes all the way to the edge.
Moochy was on the landing rolling around on her side. She slid her body under the banister railing and got so close to the edge of the landing that I nearly screamed.
Just as I began to go after her, she slipped over the edge of the landing! I was frozen in time. She was terrified (as was I) because she was slipping over the edge and down the wall. She and I both knew that if she fell, she wouldn't be able to "right" herself because she was at the wrong angle.
I was afraid to run down the stairs past her because I didn't want to frighten her more and cause her to lose what little grip she had. Helpless, I could only stand there and watch and hope that she would not slip before I could figure out how to get past her without frightening her into losing her grip and get downstairs to catch her if she fell.
Her instincts kicked into high gear. She dug her back claws into the wall and reached as far across the board as she could for the carpet. Her front paws made it to the carpet and once there, she dug in with them. She pushed with her back claws and pulled with her front claws until she managed to get all four paws onto the landing again.
I am forever grateful that she had all her claws. She would have fallen to the livingroom floor (about a 9 foot drop) if she had been declawed. At best, she would have suffered serious injury from the fall because there were 2 tables, a lamp, and a fan below her.
Moochy's claws saved her from serious injury or worse.
Educate...Don't Amputate! phrase used with permission from LV Designs.
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