Express Cat-a-vator

That is so cool!

Another example of how well they can train us!

LOL! Love how he rubs his cheeks on the way up.

Now I’m remembering that cute moment in Hitchcock’s “Rear Window” where the couple on the third floor would lower their dog down into the courtyard to play.

Er does that string not look just a little flimsy for this job?

Love the “thanks for the ride, Daddy” moment before kitteh goes inside for a nibble.

BB — i’m pretty sure it was the cat who trained the humans!

@scoobie: My thoughts exactly! It is absolutely adorable but I cringed a little when I saw the tiny string

@ash: Sounds like he’s saying “Tu vas monter?” which means “You want to come up?” Et le chat a repondu, “Oui! J’ai faim!”

haha that makes sense! i only know spanish…

thanks for the translation, lola!

I agree about the string — it looked a bit weak. I’d want nothing less than climbing rope for my precious bundle of fur. Add a carabiner, maybe some interesting knots, a pulley and they’d have a prime catavator.

I wouldn’t worry about the string since it actually looks like twine. Twine is pretty sturdy stuff for it’s thickness — It can hold the entire weight of a bale of hay and I think this cat weighs less than a bale of hay.

Not to be nitpicky, but it’s “Tu veux monter?” I have a french grammar exam tomorrow that I have been endlessly studying for…now I’m getting a little OCD about it, haha.

What a beautiful cat, by the way! I doubt his obviously loving owners would put the box/string contraption down for him if they didn’t think it was safe. I wish I had that in my apartment building!

mais oui, je desire le diner.

Mon Dieu…..il meow “oui, Papa!”

Crud! Thanks for the correction val and Mandy.

Oh, that is just sooooo freakin cool!

Brilliant! I wanna know how the call button on this elevator works though.

This is fabulous! What a calm kitty. Dainty paw holds on as he rides up as if nothing unusual is happening.

I, too, liked best when the kitty rubbed up against the rope. Schweet.
Fly, kitty, fly!
“Look, I’m a birdie! Tweet-tweet.”

Larry — yeah, I was noticing that too. I’d do 4 points (1 at each corner) and 2 strands all the way up, but then I was a rock climber. A 10-pound cat just isn’t going to sustain the damage a 180-pound dude will, in a comparable fall, and a height of 1 standard story ain’t nuthin’.

Kitteh’s like “Alright, thanks. Dindin ready?”

I love how the kitty rubs against the string on his way up. “Iz MAI speshul baskit.”

I love the tail-swish-of-anticipation as the basket is lowered.

If this were most cats that I know, kitteh would hem and haw at the basket for a few minutes, rubbing against it and swatting it but not actually entering. I’d pull the basket up and they’d claw at it as if to say “come back” and I’d drop it again and they’d go back to the rubbing. “C’mon, you, silly thing, it’s a nip frigid out and I’m missing the moment of zen,” and then they’d sort of sit down next to it. I’d pull it up and close the window, and two minutes later there would be howling.

Yet another evidence that kittehs are planning world domination by training humans, one at a time. Thank goodness I live on the first floor…

(it’s actually an ad, Cait)

In my last townhouse, my kitty was allowed to roam our tiny little enclosed patio- it had a wooden fence separating our patio from the world and more particularly our two neighbors. One day, she was quite naughty and jumped the fence and was stuck on the other side in the neighbor’s patio – I was panicked because she couldn’t find footholds and was meowing quite piteously at me to rescue her. The only thing I could think of to do is take her kitty carrier and rig it with some climbing twine I happened to have and lower the carrier over the fence to her on the other side.

She delicately sniffed at her carrier, got right in, and sat down, and darned if she didn’t just wait patiently for me to haul her up to our side of the fence!

I am still impressed, to this day, that her box addiction was enough to save the day!

Say it ain’t so, Theo – an ad? On the main bloggage?

totes sad. i mean, Dog-Hotel movie looks cute and all, and I’m all for the perpetuation of CuteOverload, but shouldn’t it be relegated to the little ‘ville of Sidebar-land?

Well, there’s a twist on room service!

Wow, count me in with the worrywarts. The two-point single-line attachment just begs for spillage or breakage, and I’m surprised (and relieved) that the cat made it safely.

I guess it’s not that great a fall, but there’s a lot of concrete down there.

Still, awfully cute. You can hear the cat calling for his ride at the very start.

Awwwwww!!!!!! That just made my heart explode into a million whisker-like lovebeams! I think it was the petite paw on the edge of the basket that did it for me, but then the whisker rub approaching etage trois just put me over the edge!! *le sigh*

Adorable! But I wouldn’t worry so much about a cat and a 10-ft fall. When I was away from home, my cat pushed through the rotted frame of an old window screen and fell 30 feet onto concrete. She chipped a tiny tip off a tooth and meowed herself hoarse trying to get back in, but otherwise was fine. She lived 20 more years. The vet told me he’s known cats to survive even higher falls than that uninjured!

I used to do this with our tortie Burmese, RIP. She jumped out of the bathroom window to the flat roof below and I couldn’t think how to get her down from there, so I lowered my school sports bag on a piece of string, she climbed into the bag and I hauled her up. Then she jumped straight back out of the window for another go, pleased with this great new game she’d invented!

I love how they’ve lined the basket for kitty’s comfort. Either that or they use it to cart home baguettes.

LOL and like a little loaf of bread kitty is lifted to new heights.. : D

no need to worry about the two-point string attachment. The basket is deep, so the center of gravity of kitteh+basket will be well below the attachment point, and it’s small, so that even if kitteh scrunches up at one end or the other, it’s unlikely to tip very far.

In short, large, shallow tray = instability;
Small, deep basket = stability.

le sigh, indeed…all the stuff i loved has been mentioned, so i will just go find jasmine and pet her. they are so wonderful, kittehs are. owner is lovely, too.

CO is like Graduate School! One of my favorite things about my grad school days was being in the elevator, and hearing all the specialized geeky jargon getting on and off. 12th floor: “Intertexutality and colonialism.” 14th floor: “Pidgeons and creoles.” 8th floor: “Spatial and cognitive maps”; 10th Floor (mine): “Minor subdominants in romantic sonata form” etc.

Don’t forget, we also have obscure poets in a broomcloset and existential agnst in films screening down in the basement.

Ha ha ha! The other day I picked up our cat, Button, and made elevator noises when I lifted him. I joyfully called out, “Hey, it’s the ‘Button-vator’!”

It took a few seconds to figure out why my husband was rolling on the floor laughing. Ooops! Ha ha ha!

ROFL! Oh that was just too fricking cute! How well trained those two humans are! Hehe.

it took me a couple seconds too, linda. then i laughed til i cried.

p.s. that little paw on the side of the basket…so awesome.

Temperance — JINX I GET A MOCHAAAAAA!… um yeah

LOL I sat here going Hunh then I got it too Linda LOLOLOL

what a sweeet kitty!! my baby boy would need practically steel to lift him up.

omigosh… too cute!!

linda, I don’t get it… *puppydogeyes* explanashons please?

Aw. I love that he’s not scared at all.. rubbing his face on the ropes as he’s lifted!

Wow! they have that down to a SCIENCE! I gotta get my dog to do that! we live on the 3rd floor, and its very difficult to take him outside on a leash. I need to do this and make the string on four corners and hopefully he’d come up!