Cat Rescue Guy

Whenever I get a call to rescue an unknown cat, I never know quite what to expect. This time, however, I had a good idea that it would be a friendly cat. When Jesse called me for the rescue, he told what he had already done to rescue the cat himself, and the the cat's cooperative reaction to his attempts was a very positive sign. Jesse and his wife, Nina, had discovered the cat in a large pine tree at the edge of the woods on the property the day before. They did not recognize the cat, but were just as determined to help it as if it were their own. The cat was on the lowest limb of the tree but was still a little over 40 feet high. The limb was partially broken and angled downward several feet. Jesse made a valiant and almost successful effort to climb a ladder as high as he could and use a pool net to reach the cat which came down the drooping limb to get closer to him. The cat actually stepped inside the net with his front paws, but Jesse was unable to get the back legs in to...

Of all the animals in this world, I believe it is the cat that has the greatest talent for getting itself into problematic and dangerous situations. They manage to get themselves trapped in a bewildering number of ways: locked up in closets and cabinets, in the attic, inside furniture, inside walls, on roofs, in holes of all kinds, and, of course, high in trees. I even found one inside a refrigerated soft drink vending machine. They also manage to get themselves outside their own territory into uncomfortable, if not dangerous, new places. Sometimes, they simply walk there, while, other times, they hitch a ride in cars, trailers or boats and show up in the most unexpected places. When we are surprised to find these mysterious cats where they do not normally belong, we always ask in wonder and amazement, "How did you get here?" The cat never answers. This theme repeated itself a few days ago in Livingston when Wendy discovered a small, lone Siamese kitten in the wooded area...

It gets to me every time. Every time I see a cat high in a tree looking down at me with that pitiful, wide-eyed look of desperation and crying repeatedly for help, it touches me. It touches that part of my heart which understands and feels that lonely, helpless suffering and that hopeless feeling of being trapped. There's no way out.  That is what I see at almost every rescue, and it is what I saw again when I saw Grey for the first time. Grey is a one-and-a-half year old brown tabby boy. He was probably more gray than brown as a young kitten, but he looks more brown to me now. He was probably chased up the tree in the next door neighbor's back yard by a new dog in the neighborhood, but we don't know for sure. Regardless, he is now almost 30 feet high in a very large tree in the overgrown back part of the yard bordered by a canal. The trunk of the tree is roughly four feet in diameter, and it rises thirty feet before it splits into three forks which rise upward in diffe...