Cat Rescue Guy

I know.  This is a cat rescue site, so what is an iguana doing here?  Well, if your pet iguana gets loose and climbs a tree what are you going to do?  If you think finding a tree-climbing cat rescuer is difficult, try finding an iguana rescuer. I admit I was very hesitant to agree to give this a try when I first got the call.  I know absolutely nothing about iguanas, but these people really cared about their pet.  The owner had already tried to rescue the iguana with a home-made catch pole while standing on a ladder on the roof of the house resulting in a fall for both.  Fortunately, no one was harmed in the process, but the iguana ran to another tree and found safety in its branches.  I had to at least take a look to see if I could do anything. I went out to the site and was told that the iguana was in this very large tree with numerous very long branches.  My heart sank as I thought of how difficult it would be to get close to an iguana in this tree.  Iguanas are adapted to li

I had been longing for an easy rescue, and this time I got my wish.  Not only was Truffles a model, cooperative cat, she was also located very close to my own neighborhood.  Truffles is a sweet, outdoor calico that became stuck in a tree in her own backyard.  She had been in the tree only one night, but the extreme heat of the days had left her panting and dehydrated.  She was suffering, and she really needed to come down to get some water and cool off. She was less than 20 feet high so my ascent was pretty quick.  She stayed in place while I came up to her and was not afraid of me.  That is what I love to see.  I let her sniff my hand, and she let me touch her.  At one point she turned around and walked a few steps farther out on the branch away from me, but she quickly turned around and came back. I pulled out a can of food to see if she was interested.  I was told that she had never had canned food before, so I was not sure what to expect.  I gave her a small spoon of the wet

Very little is known about Francis.  We don't know where he came from, whether he has any surviving family, or even if he is a boy or a girl.  All we know is that he is a feral kitten who got stuck in a tree, and he was not happy about it.  He lived in a rough environment, so he could have been chased up the tree by a dog, coyote or even one of the mean cats known to be in the area.  Whatever his story, it was both short and unpleasant.  Lucky for him, though, that a very kind teenager lived there, heard his cries, and had the heart and initiative to do something good for him. I was told that he was somewhat tame in that he was not uncomfortable around people, but he was not especially friendly with them either.  When I arrived and heard him calling longingly at the people below, I felt like he could be a cooperative kitten and an easy rescue.  He was near the end of a long branch, but I watched as he walked all the way back to the trunk.  If he could do that, then I should b

First of all, yes, Too-Tha is the name of the cat.  It is the kind of name you have to expect when you allow your 3 year-old granddaughter to name your cat, and that is exactly what happened here.  Too-Tha is a sweet, friendly, black female cat that became stuck in this gum tree where I circled her in red. She was far out on the branch, but since the branch was not too steep and she was a friendly girl, I thought I would have no trouble luring her closer to the trunk where I could reach her.  I climbed up to her branch and stood on it next to the trunk, and while she did not seem distressed or fearful of me, she also would not come any closer either.  I tried to lure her closer with food and water, but she would not come. I needed to walk out on that branch to get closer to her, but th ere was very little above that branch that I could use to secure myself while I did so.  I threw one line above me which gave me the ability to go out a little farther, and then I tied my lanyard f

This is an un-named feral youngster we will call Fred.  Fred wandered into a fenced-in back yard that happened to hold several dogs.  The dogs took a special interest in Fred and chased him up this tree where he stayed for seven days before the property owner, Connie, was able to find me.  Connie was also Fred's caretaker, but she told me that he would not let her get close to him.  Connie had made several noble and creative attempts to get Fred down, but all proved unsuccessful.  He was not very high -- only 15 feet or so -- but it was too much for Fred. Whenever I am told that the cat I am about to rescue is feral, I know to expect difficulty.  Feral cats are too afraid of people to allow me get close, so they either jump or climb higher.  Fred was different.  To my surprise, he allowed me to get very close to him -- so close, in fact, that the option of scruffing him into a bag was an option.  Scruffing a feral cat is much harder and more risky than with tame cats, however

This is the pitiful sight that greeted me when I arrived to rescue Cake.  This sweet boy had been in the tree for four days and was so exhausted that all he could do was drape himself over the branch and wait to die.  He didn't even move his head to watch me below; he moved only his eyes.  Seeing him dangling there just broke my heart. Unfortunately for Cake, this turned out to be my worst rescue performance ever.  In all my tree climbs, whether rescues, practice, training or fun climbs, I have never dropped anything that I did not intend to drop.  But on this one rescue I dropped three things:  a can of his favorite treats, my rescue-pole, and, worst of all, Cake.  Cake survived the fall just fine and is doing very well, and while the fall was substantial, it was not as far as it appears in this picture. He landed on soft ground and immediately ran off to hide.  Still, this was a bad day for me. I had been told that Cake was skittish with strangers, so I knew it

Spanky was a very difficult rescue.  The poor dear had been in the tree nine days by the time I got there, and those nine days had been very difficult ones.  There were very violent thunderstorms with intense lightning almost every day during that time, and to make it worse, she was in the tree during the 4th of July and all the fireworks that exploded all around her.  The cat's owner, Katherine, managed to find a cable TV worker in the neighborhood who was in a bucket truck, and she persuaded him to try to rescue her cat.  She also persuaded the local fire department to give it a try.  They all succeeded only in scaring the cat higher in the tree.  Also going on during this time, there were many large trucks and heavy machinery with very loud engines, brakes and horns working close by.  Poor Spanky had endured many scary things in this world.  And then I showed up. Spanky was a tame, pet female cat, but she was afraid of strangers, so she was already predisposed to fear me.