Cat Rescue Guy

Hurricane Harvey brought devastation to Texas, but fortunately for Baton Rouge, all we got was frequent rain for several days.  It was  when Harvey weakened to a tropical storm and began making its way up the western part of Louisiana that I got a message about a cat  found in a tree in a swamp near Sorrento.  A bird-watcher had been out looking for birds on a rural road through a swamp when he heard  the cry of a cat coming from the trees.  This kind soul spotted the cat and reported his sighting along with pictures and location information to CARA's House, the local animal shelter nearby.  The shelter forwarded the pictures and report to me and asked if I could  help. Harvey was causing intermittent showers in the Baton Rouge area, but it was generally mild enough that it would not prevent a rescue.   But I was not sure how I was going to handle this rescue.  The pictures I saw showed standing water in front of the trees, but I could  not see the backside, and I had no idea

The cat rescue business has been pretty slow lately.  There seems to be some kind of summer slump going on this year.  I had only two rescues for the entire month of July, and now, here we are near the end of August, and I have had only three rescues to my credit for the month.  I have been moping around the house much of this summer wishing and waiting for the phone to ring and summon me out on another rescue. Well, of course, the call finally did come, but it was after 6:00 on a Friday evening.  Hurricane Harvey was approaching the Texas coast and expected to make landfall near midnight.  The outer rain bands were just now approaching us here in Baton Rouge, and, while we were not expecting to have to deal with the hurricane itself, we were expecting plenty of rain for the next several days.  I had only an hour and a half of daylight left, and I needed some time to get ready and another 25 minutes to drive to the site.  The cat, Pepper, had been in the tree only four hours so far

Benji is a sweet, 1-year old, gray and white cat who lives with Naomi and her family in Covington.   When Benji got stuck in a small tree at the edge of a wild and wooded area across the street from their rural home, Naomi and her family were at a loss about what to do until it occurred to them that they could simply cut this small tree down.  So cut it down they did.  Unfortunately, to their surprise and disappointment, their faces fell as they watched Benji simply run up another tree.   Now Benji was about 40 feet high in a tall pine tree, and this tree was much too large to cut down. Naomi called the fire department, and, to their credit, they actually came out to see what they could do.  Unfortunately, there was nothing they could do.  Benji continued to languish in the tree day after day while crying to Naomi for help.  Naomi felt miserable and helpless, but she and her family could not figure out what to do.  The month was August, and the heat was oppressive.  Fortunately for

When I fist rescued Flo, I wondered how long it would be before I would need to rescue her again.  The answer is six days.  When I learned that Flo just showed up a few weeks ago to join Patricia's other cats and that Flo had already been stuck in a tree before I rescued her the first time, I knew the chances were good that I would need to rescue her again.  Fortunately, Flo is the kind of cat I want to rescue more than once.  She is friendly, affectionate and super sweet, and when she climbs a tree, she settles on one of the lowest branches instead of climbing up to the top.  The first time I rescued her, she was only 15 feet high.  This time, she is in a different tree but only 20 feet high. It is not very often that I rescue a cat that is friendly but unwilling to go into a carrier.  Even though Flo was interested in the food I gave her and had placed inside the carrier, she would not go inside.  She rubbed her head all over the entrance, and she would put her front feet ins

Patricia describes herself as "not a cat person," but she clearly has a big heart.  Cats just seem to appear at her house, and Patricia is just about the only one in the area who will take care of them.  So it was with this new black cat which showed up just two or three weeks ago.  She appears to be young, probably less than a year old, and, while her past is a mystery, she seems to think her future lies with Patricia.  Attempts to find the owner have been unsuccessful, so Patricia continues to care for her but has not gone so far as to name her.  Until she does, I will just call her Flo. Flo has already become stuck in a tree before, but Patricia's husband was able to get her down by using a ladder.  This time, however, Flo was out of reach of the ladder, so Patricia searched the web until she found me.  I arrived there to find Flo only 15 feet high on the lowest branch of a large pine tree.  Since Patricia told me that Flo was very friendly, I was expecting this