Cat Rescue Guy

Cats don't ever talk about it, but they suffer when they get stuck in a tree. When a cat has to  curve his body around the stem and  stand on two thin limbs, it gets tiring very fast. Imagine only 10 minutes in that position without being able to change your position appreciably. The limbs begin to dig into your feet, so you move your feet and let your body take the weight. It does not take long before that gets unbearable, so it's back to the feet. Imagine an hour like that, then a whole day and night. Now, imagine seven days like that, and you have an idea what Peaches suffered. Peaches is a six-year-old calico that got stuck 40 feet high in a 45-feet-tall sweet gum tree just a few yards from an interstate highway. Chanel and her husband, Timmy, did everything they could to help her down, but nothing was working. Every effort and every call for help failed to produce any results. At last, Chanel caught a ray of hope when someone on Facebook mentioned me. Chanel sent a me...

Zephyr is a cool cat. He is friendly, relaxed and docile like a one-year-old orange tabby should be. His buff-colored brother, Chubby, is also a cool cat. Chubby tends to act protective of his litter-mate brother, and when Zephyr climbed up the tree and would not come back down, Chubby offered his support from down below and guarded the area. So, when I arrived to rescue Zephyr, Chubby greeted me and checked me out thoroughly. He inspected all my gear to make sure it met proper specifications, and even made sure I had the required properly-sized space in my gear box for a cat nap. Only when I passed all the inspections did he allow me to proceed, and even then, he followed me and watched every move. Zephyr was in a bad spot. He climbed a skinny tree that was basically nothing more than a pole with several useless little limbs sticking out of it. There were no limbs on that tree that I trusted to hold my weight. To make matters worse, the tree was fully surrounded by a sea of azalea...

I dropped my jaw and almost lost my teeth when Victoria pointed to her cat, Honey, about 70 feet high in a tree. We were in the front yard, and Victoria was pointing over the house to a tree far in the back yard. The second highest limb on the tree was very long and reached far out and up at an angle before turning roughly vertical. At the point where it turned vertical was where I found Honey clinging to the limb all exposed, isolated and miserable. My heart sank as I knew that there was no way that I could get to that spot to rescue her, and the limb appeared to be too steep for her to come down on her own. To my amazement, Honey actually did manage to come down that limb about 10 feet, which made the rescue much more feasible. She had been motivated by the appearance and calling of Victoria to see how much lower she could go. Maybe she sensed that I was there to help too. Whatever it was, she came down a little lower before I even had a chance to take a picture of her in her ext...

Sweetie Bell was just six months old when Jacqueline adopted her. Even though Sweetie Bell had spent most of her time outdoors up to that time, Jacqueline intended to keep her inside at her rural home near Covington. Sweetie Bell adapted to indoor life very well, but she still heard the call of the wild once in a while, and she learned how to dash out the door when that split-second of opportunity presented itself. That is how she got outside this time, and it was not long before she found herself stuck 20 feet high in a very large oak tree. Jacqueline was very concerned about Sweetie Bell and tried everything she could to help her down. Sweetie Bell was very nervous in the tree, and every unusual sound or movement caused her to go a little higher in the tree. So, it seemed that the more Jacqueline did to help, the more it hurt, as Sweetie Bell just went higher and higher. Jacqueline even called the fire department for help, and they actually went out there to see what they could d...

As soon as I finished rescuing Minew in Folsom, I drove straight from there to Walker to rescue Kiki, a cat I have rescued once before. Just like Kiki's first rescue when tropical storm Barry was approaching, the weather added a sense of urgency to this rescue as well. A severe cold front was expected to pass through the area overnight and bring rain and freezing temperatures. To make matters worse, by the time I arrived, there would be only one and a half hours of daylight left, and we didn't know exactly where Kiki was. Lauren could hear him crying from somewhere in the woods behind her house, but did not know which tree he might be in. It is often very difficult to see a cat in a tree even when you know which tree to examine, but finding one in the woods is far more difficult. I arrived there before Lauren and began calling and looking for Kiki. I really needed Kiki to respond to me so I could at least narrow down the search area in this large expanse of woods, but Kik...

Minew and his twin sibling just recently joined Newman's family at their rural home near Folsom, and it did not take long at all for Minew to get himself into trouble. We don't know why he did it, but he climbed a sweet gum tree beside the house and got stuck there. Minew was only nine months old, and we don't know much about his short history, but he apparently either missed or failed any childhood tree-climbing lessons. He was now 50 feet high on the highest useful limb of the tree, and he was well beyond the reach of Newman's ladder. He spent three nights in the tree before Newman found me and called. While the weather had been relatively mild thus far, there was now a new urgency to getting Minew down soon, because a severe cold front was due to arrive during the night bringing some rain and freezing temperatures. No one could be home that afternoon to greet me, but, with clear directions, I was able to find the house, tree and cat very easily. Once Minew heard ...

Emily was going back to her car in the parking lot of the bank when she heard a faint meow. She looked around but did not see anything. Thinking she was mistaken, she was about to continue on her way when she heard it again. Now, she knew she was hearing a kitten, and she began to search for it. Fortunately, the kitten continued to cry for her, and Emily located it in the wheel well of the truck next to her. She pulled the crying gray tabby kitten out of the truck and cradled it in her arms, and she knew right away that she was going to take it home with her. She already had a three-month-old gray tabby girl at home, so now these two were going to be sisters. Emily called the three-month-old Big Girl, so she named this new kitten Little Girl. The two kittens got along very well with each other, and now, two years later, they are still very happy together living their indoor life with Emily. Once in a while, Emily will let them go out on the patio for some supervised outdoor time, b...

"Excuse me. Did you say that there are three cats stuck in a tree?" The idea seemed so incredible and unlikely to me that I had to verify that I understood him correctly. "Yes," Jerry said. "There are two cats stuck in one tree, and a third cat is stuck in a separate tree about 20 feet away." I was dumbfounded. I have heard of cases where two cats were stuck in a tree at the same time, but that is rare. Usually, they are sibling kittens or mama and kitten sticking together, but here was a case with three cats and all are unrelated. This must be a special record of some kind, and I could not wait to see it for myself. Jerry lives next door to Donnie, and their houses are separated by a small ditch lined on both sides with trees. The cats were in trees that were on Donnie's side of the ditch, so when I arrived, they were both waiting for me in Donnie's driveway and motioned for me to park there. After introductions, they pointed out the cat...