I too have a 'large' sized cat who is uncoordinated as well. We keep his box/food in our basement, but have several gates throughout the house. Although it took a while, our cat did learn to jump the gates. I think what really got him going was when he was napping upstairs and I brought the vacuum up there to do some cleaning - that cat leaped 3 gates to get to the basement to hide!! He now has no problems at all jumping the gates. Guess he just needed a bit of incentive! Best of luck to you all...

ct