Carl is an insurance adjuster who was assessing hurricane damage at several homes in Donaldsonville, and as soon as he arrived at one of his stops, he noticed a cat stuck in a tree in the empty lot across the street. No one there knew anything about the cat. He went over to investigate, and the cat cried down to him as if pleading for help. The cat was not very high, so Carl took his ladder over to the tree to help the cat down. Unfortunately, as often happens, the noise and sight of the approaching ladder frightened the cat, and he went higher in the tree. After a few phone calls, Carl found me, gave me a call and then resumed his work.
I arrived a few hours later and easily found the cat exactly where Carl had told me. He was a pretty orange tabby, and, when I walked beneath him and talked to him, he cried down to me and appeared to be a friendly kitty. He was only 15 feet high but about six feet out on a long limb of this Tallow tree.
Each step of the rope-installation process scared the cat. Fortunately, he never moved from his perch, but I could hear his voice expressing grave concern for all the commotion I was creating. Actually, I was very pleased with how quietly and discreetly I had done it, but it did not take much to upset this kitty. After each step, I stopped to give him time to settle down and talked to him calmly until I had successfully finished installing the rope.
When I climbed up to him, he made friends with me pretty quickly. He came down closer to me, sniffed my hand, and let me pet him. With that introduction out of the way, he came all the way down the limb to me, and we had a nice visit there in the tree. At one point, I got a good look at his rear end and determined that he was a neutered male. At times he would step on my lap, but he always quickly stepped back on the limb. I had not anticipated this, but I was certainly pleased to think he would be comfortable going down in my lap. After another minute of visiting in the tree, he stepped all the way onto my lap, so I began to bring him down.
As we went down, he suddenly became very nervous, and I suddenly realized I had made a big mistake. Anytime I rescue an unknown cat, I always like to contain them, ideally in the cat bag, so I can scan them for a microchip, but this kitty was not contained, and he was now too nervous to hang around once on the ground. Shortly before reaching the ground, he jumped from my lap to the ground and trotted away a short distance where he stopped to look back at me. He continued to trot away and stop to look until he went under a nearby house.
I still had hope that he would calm down as before and come back out to see me as long as I remained unthreatening. I calmly packed up my gear, and, when I had finished, I looked for the kitty and tried to entice him out to me again. I could not see him, and he was not coming back out, so, after several minutes, I gave up and left. He was clearly a tame and loved boy, and the chances are very good that he went back to his home nearby, but this is one time I had to leave without knowing that for sure.
