Cat Rescue Guy

I was out running errands around town when Dan called me to see if I could rescue his cat, Ray, who was stuck in a sweet gum tree that was just beyond the fence in his backyard neighbor's yard. Dan had already obtained permission from the neighbor for me to go into their yard to rescue the cat. In fact, it was from them that Dan learned about me and got my phone number. Ray had been in the tree only three hours up to that point, but I could sense the urgency in Dan's voice. Dan knew his little 1-year-old boy was stuck, and he was not going to waste any time in helping him. I cut some items from my errand list so that I could get there sooner, and we agreed on a meeting time three hours later. When I got home, I looked up his address on the map, and it looked familiar. I had to check my cat rescue records, but then I figured out why it looked familiar. About eight months earlier, I had rescued another unrelated cat, Starbuck , in the yard immediately behind Dan's house. ...

Lulu is a lucky cat. While she gets to enjoy the indoor life with a loving family, she lives out in the country where she also has many outdoor acres of kitty paradise to explore. But as she has been learning the hard way, that paradise has many dangers as well. Some of those dangers come in the form of predators that she can escape only by climbing a tree. Fortunately, Lulu's climbing instinct is strong. It's the coming down part that she hasn't figured out yet. Consequently, she has found herself stuck in a tree a few times, but her family always managed to get her down one way or another. This time, however, she was 50 feet high in a taller and larger tree than any before, and her family was at a loss to help her down. Roy, his wife, Margaret, and Roy's mother, Mary, all did everything they could to get Lulu down. Being very resourceful people, they even figured out a way to haul a large bucket up to Lulu hoping she would be enticed to step inside to get the tuna...

Booger is a four-year-old orange tabby boy who, for reasons unknown, climbed up a small tree in his yard and got stuck there. He was not high -- less than 20 feet -- but it was the location of the tree that made this rescue so unusual and difficult. The tree was growing in the middle of some large and dense shrubs that were almost as high as Booger was. From my view as I stood on the ground and looked at the site, the lower part of the tree was completely hidden by the shrubs, and the shrubs appeared impenetrable. But as Dana showed me, some limbs could be pushed aside at one place to make room for entry to the base of the tree. There was not much room inside there, of course, and there were numerous small limbs from both the shrubs and the tree which poked my body and head from every direction. I did not see a way to install a rope in the tree in the usual manner. Booger was in the top junction of the tree, there were power lines just beyond the tree, and the shrubs would make i...

Kelly walked out into her backyard in Ocean Springs, Mississippi one morning and saw something unusual. There were two cats sitting in a tree at the back edge of her yard. She did not recognize either cat, and she did not have a cat of her own. She wondered if they would be able to get down on their own, and when she checked on them a little later, sure enough, one of the cats was gone. She gave the second cat more time to come down and kept checking on it, but he did not seem to be making any progress. More time passed, and still the cat was there. Kelly and her husband, Casey, tried to coax it down, and when that failed, they tried to think of other ideas. A friend of theirs climbed the tree without ropes or any safety equipment and tried to shake the cat out, but that, too, failed. Each morning, Kelly checked the tree and hoped that the cat would be gone, but he continued to cling to his place for six days. The only cat rescuer she could find anywhere close was Bob Reese in Starkv...

It was just after dark on a gloomy, drizzly day when Seth called to see if I could get his cat out of a tree. His cat, Alley, is a nine-month old Siamese mix, and he found her earlier that afternoon in a tree and could not get her down. He wasn't sure exactly how long she had been stuck there, but it was no more than half a day. Alley was in familiar territory and knew her way home if she came down on her own, so this was not sounding particularly urgent. Normally, I would have gone there the next morning, but the weather forecast was for 100 percent chance of rain starting later in the night and continuing throughout the next day. If I did not rescue Alley tonight, then I would likely be unable to rescue her until after her second night in the tree. I had not done a complete nighttime rescue before, though I was prepared for it. I have ended rescues after dark, but never started one in the dark. When given a choice, I would rather start the rescue in daylight, because it is im...

The new year began with a challenging rescue, and I hope that is not an indication of more to come. Tom had called me the evening before and told me about his four-year old cat, Daisy, that had been stuck in a tree for two nights already. She was about 40 feet high in a skinny tree with no large limbs, and the tree was on the bank of a small canal in an overgrown lot. Tom told me that Daisy is skittish with strangers, so I would not be able to count on her cooperation. I kept waiting for Tom to tell me something about this rescue that sounded positive, but it never came. I told him I would be there in the morning, and I was hoping to find that it looked better than it sounded. I arrived the following morning and Tom led me to the site. I saw Daisy perched uncomfortably on a skinny limb in a skinny tree with few significant limbs, just like Tom had said. Poor Daisy. To be stuck in such a miserable spot for three nights: how do they do it? I looked around the undergrowth for access t...