Cat Rescue Guy

Twitty, a nine-month old gray tabby boy, wasn't expected to live this long because he has a serious heart murmur.  It is so bad, in fact, that he was almost euthanized as a kitten.  But Twitty got lucky.  He had a merciful angel by the name of Gloria step in and save his life.  Gloria has fostered and re-homed countless cats and kittens.  She bottle-feeds the kittens that need it, nurses sick cats back to health, cares for special needs cats, and provides a loving home for all of them until they can be re-homed.  She saw no reason to euthanize Twitty.  He looked fine and acted fine.  His life may turn out to be short, but he deserved the chance to live it, and Gloria was going to give it to him. When Gloria was unable to find Twitty recently, she worried about him.  It wasn't like him to ignore her calls for him.  She wondered if his heart had failed, or if he had gone off somewhere to hide and die.  She looked for him but could not find him.  Eventually, she heard him cryi

Cats are natural tree climbers.  They are very good at climbing up, and once they get up high, they are very mobile walking along the branches.  Heights don't scare them, and they walk freely with excellent balance and fluid agility around, under or over this limb or that twig.  Being light and agile, they can go to parts of the tree that a person can't, even with all his ropes and gear.  So it is to be expected that sometimes a cat can get stuck in a part of the tree that no tree climber can reach.  I have often worried about being called to rescue a cat that I cannot reach, but, so far, that has not happened.  Nevertheless, it is a haunting and torturous feeling that is always there in the back of my mind. When I got the call from Donna on this Sunday to rescue an unknown cat, I had my usual concerns about not knowing anything about the cat, but I was not concerned about being able to reach it.  Overall, I was expecting a routine rescue case except for one thing:  this

Whenever I get a call for a cat rescue, I start walking to my computer so that I can look up the address on Google Maps.  That way, I don't have to ask for directions, since I will be able to see exactly how to get there and estimate how long it will take.  This time, however, I did not need Google Maps to show how me to get there, because the caller, Betty, lived only two blocks away from me.  This would be a rescue for one of my own neighbors. The cat, named Sugar Baby, is an orange girl who originally belonged to Betty's mother.   Betty did not know Sugar Baby's age when her mother got her.  She knew only that that was 15 years ago, so Sugar Baby had to be at least that old and probably older.  Sugar Baby was not in good health, and she was moving very slowly.  While she is always kept inside, she found an opportunity to dash out the door while it was open, and she ended up 15 feet high in the tree.  She had been stuck there for one night before Betty found me and call

Patsy is a 1 year old brown tabby girl who lives far out in the country with her family.  A neighbor's large dog rather rudely chased Patsy up a tree, and she was stuck there.  The tree was on the edge of a large trail through a wooded area.  When I arrived, I found Patsy just over 20 feet high in a small tree supporting a column of vines beside it.  Patsy had been in the tree only six hours or so, but her family knew she was stuck, and they wanted her down.  Patsy had been stuck once before, but it was in a small sapling, and they got her down themselves by cutting the tree down. From what I learned about Patsy beforehand, it sounded like she could be a friendly and cooperative cat, but I could not be sure.  The tree had very few limbs worthy of my trust for rope installation, so I chose one that was just opposite the trunk from Patsy's position.  Fortunately, she was not frightened by my setup process.  Indeed, she was curious about it and came over to the limb to play wi

Sometimes a cat that no one knows gets stuck in a tree, and it is the property owner, concerned neighbor or passer-by who calls me to rescue it.  These unknown cats could be feral and mean or tame and super-sweet, but I won't know for sure until I get in the tree with them.  So far, I have been very lucky in that most of these unknown cats have been very sweet and cooperative.  When I got the call from Tim, a conscientious and concerned homeowner who found an unknown cat in his tree, I wondered if my luck would continue to hold. Tim told me that the cat had been stuck in the tree on the edge of his yard for two nights.  The second night, we had some of the most horrendous weather.  There were severe storms, perpetual lightning, flash flooding and tornado watches in the area most of the night.  This poor cat suffered through the entire storm, and when Tim checked on him the following morning, he found him still there looking pretty soaked and ragged. Tim told me that there was a

Please do not misunderstand me.  It's not that I wish for any cat to be stuck and suffering in a tree, but I sure was happy when I got the call to rescue Simba again.  I was happy, because I love to rescue Simba.  He is such a fun and amusing cat who is always relaxed and affectionate and easy to rescue.  This is the third time I have had to rescue him, and they all ended the same way: with Simba riding down to the ground in my lap. This time, Simba was in a different tree, but it was fairly close to the old one.  He was just over 20 feet high and uncharacteristically quiet when I arrived.  Maybe he was napping, but after he heard us below talking about him, he began to talk a bit, and I was no longer concerned about him. His rescue was routine, just like the first two before.  I climbed up to him and he happily greeted me.  We visited for a few minutes, and then he stepped into my lap.  While in my lap, he began to purr and then lifted his head up to mine and gave me a kis