Summer in the City Often Means High-Rise Cat Syndrome

By JANNY SCOTT
Published: July 10, 1994

The annals of urban veterinary medicine and the wards of animal hospitals in New York City on hot summer nights offer a weird glimpse of the perils and pressures of big-city life in the late 20th century.

Physicians and others who care for the human body and soul have long recognized certain physical and psychological consequences of urban living. So it seems logical that similar patterns might prevail among the animals that intimately share city dwellers' lives.

Indeed, for pets as for humans, summer in the city can be brutal. For this is the season of high-rise cat syndrome, when pets plunge inexplicably from 20th-story windows. [more ...]

Photo: Sherlock [a large dog] at the window of his master's 27th-floor apartment on Bleecker Street. Summer is the season of high-rise cat syndrome, when pets plunge inexplicably from 20th-story windows, as Sherlock once tried to do. (Chris Maynard for The New York Times)

A version of this article appeared in print on July 10, 1994, on page 121 of the New York edition.