Cat Rescue Guy

Same cat, same tree.  Cake was even in the same spot on the same branch thirty feet high.  But this rescue would be different.  They all are. Cake is a skittish cat.  Even in his own home, he runs from strangers.  He was afraid of me during his first rescue, but he was just so exhausted from his several long nights and the summer heat that he just could not run away from me.  This time, however, he had energy, and he was so terrified of me that it was heart-breaking.  It is so painful for me to hear those desperate, deathly cries of terror and not be able to explain to him that I was a friend and he would be just fine.  He thought this was the terrifying end of his life, and he was not going out without letting the world know about it.  So he walked out to the end of his branch and shouted his cries and pleas for help just as loudly as he could. Since I could not possibly get close to him, I thought the only thing I could do was to set a cat trap on his branch.  I set up the t

Velcro is a youngster who has been with his current owners for only a month and a half.  He was very lucky that Elizabeth just happened to discover him.  He had been stuck like velcro in a tree for more than a week in another neighborhood where no one could or would do anything to help him.  Since he was not very high, Elizabeth lured him down a little lower where she could grab him.  She took him home with her and has lovingly kept him inside ever since.  That is, until this day when he made a quick, unauthorized slip out the door.  He quickly climbed the massive live oak tree in the front yard.  By the time I arrived, he had settled about 30 feet high where I circled him in red in this photo. Velcro was a difficult rescue.  If he had not been so afraid of me and had been more cooperative, it would have been easy.  But this tree offered him multiple routes to go to get away from me, and he used them.  At first I was expecting him to be cooperative, so I climbed up directly below h

Mel is a special, indoor, 5 year-old, black cat who scooted out the door and climbed this tree on the edge of her yard.  She came to rest about 25 feet high on a broken branch that was loosely suspended horizontally by small branches as shown in this picture at the extreme top of the frame.  It made me very nervous to watch her as she walked back and forth along the length of that branch crying for help.  She had been in the tree for three days before her owners, Rachel and Chris, found me.  Stormy weather was approaching, so I rushed to get Mel down before that arrived. In my rush, I failed to place my climbing line where it would not interfere with the suspended branch that Mel was on.  I was concerned that my rope would push against the branch enough to dislodge it, sending both the branch and Mel to the ground.  To minimize that risk, I climbed only to a point beneath her and hoped to lure her into a carrier from there. Mel is a friendly cat that is highly food-motivated, so

Midnight is a mystery cat.    We don't know if he is a boy or girl.   All we know is that he climbed a cypress tree in Jim's backyard sometime during the night.  Jim and his neighbor, Theresa, were familiar with several cats in the neighborhood, but neither had ever seen this cat before.  There were no Lost Cat flyers in the neighborhood and no posts on the Lost Pets web page.  Since the cat is all black and appeared in the night, I will just call him Midnight. I never know what to expect from an unknown cat.  He could be the friendliest cat I ever met or he could be the meanest feral cat I ever saw.  He could be super easy to rescue or he could be the most difficult of my life.  With unknown cats, I just have to be prepared for anything. I found Midnight about 20 feet high in a cypress tree with numerous small branches that I would have to weave myself around.  I picked out the clearest path upward that I could find and started climbing.  Midnight never made a sound.  I

Most cat rescuers will not attempt to rescue a cat unless it has been in the tree at least one night.  This requirement is reasonable because they want to make sure that the cat has an adequate opportunity to figure out how to come down on its own.  Some rescuers even require two nights in the tree.  I don't.  It is pretty easy to tell when a cat in a tree is in distress:  he will cry constantly, he will attempt to come down head first and then pull back, he will pace laterally or climb higher.  If the cat or his owner is in distress, then I will attempt a rescue after only one hour in the tree.  So when I got the call one morning to rescue a kitten that had been in the tree only one hour, I was readily agreeable.  I trust the owner to know their cat and know when it is truly stuck. I arrived at the site to find Kitty in a very large oak tree with dense foliage that would make it difficult not only to install a climbing line, but also to climb.  All of the numerous short branchin