Cat Rescue Guy

Most people would take it as a bad sign when they go to a shelter and learn that a particular kitten has been adopted and returned to the shelter twice, but Margie was not deterred. This little black and white kitten was the only one who stuck his paw out of the cage and patted her on her face, and once that connection was made, Margie made up her mind and took the kitten to her home in rural Bogue Chitto, Mississippi with her husband, Andrew, and their children. They named him Clark, and he settled into their home and has been a perfectly wonderful and well-loved cat for three years now. When Clark and his canine brother are inside, they get along just fine, but when they go outside, his brother tends to chase him. That is what happened recently, and this chase got a little out of hand as Clark was chased into the woods across the street where he escaped by climbing a Pine tree. Clark kept climbing upward looking for a limb where he could rest, but he climbed 55 feet high before he fo...

Girl is an inside cat in Bay St. Louis, Mississippi, but something spooked her when the door happened to be open, and she ran outside and across the street where she was chased by two loose dogs into a wooded area. Girl escaped by climbing up a Pine tree and settling on a small limb about 35 feet high near the top of the tree. Girl escaped the dogs, but she could not escape the tree and was stuck there for six long days during some cold weather, including one near-freezing rainy night. She was miserable, and she cried loudly and constantly to let everyone know. Girl became scared when I climbed up to her, so I went slowly and tried to reassure her every step of the way. She was clearly uncomfortable, but she was also clearly too tired to react and never moved from her position the entire time. She sniffed my hand but had little reaction to it.  When I petted her, however, she relaxed a good bit and felt reassured. She had no interest in the carrier, so I put her in the bag instead ...

I didn't know what to do with Suki. I thought this rescue was going to be simple, quick, easy and pleasant. Suki was on the lowest, dead stub of a limb in a tall Pine tree in her next door neighbor's yard in Denham Springs, and she was pleading for anyone to help her. She is a sweet, one-year-old girl who looked ready to cooperate with me to get her down, even though she had been in the tree only eight hours or so. I climbed up to her, and she readily greeted me and made friends with me. She was ready to go; all I had to do was bring her down. I pulled the carrier up to her, but she seemed a bit uncomfortable with that. Rather than risk her climbing higher in this tall tree, I just put the carrier away. No problem. I will just bag her. I prepared the cat bag on my arm, and then I learned that Suki HATES the scent of any other cat. I don't typically wash my cat bag between rescues, so the bag held the scent of several cats that had been rescued prior. Suki could smell the sc...

When her neighbor's cat had a litter of kittens, Jaime knew that she would have to be the responsible one and take care of them. She did the right thing and raised them, had them all spayed or neutered, and then found a home for each. All, that is, except this one gray tabby boy. She did not intend to keep him or even name him, but two years later, he is one of the family, and the family still refers to him simply as Baby Boy. Baby Boy got stuck in a tree in the back yard during some cold weather, and Jaime was worried about him. After she failed in all her efforts to get him down or find someone who could, she finally found me, and I went out there to her home in Bush, Louisiana the next morning after Baby Boy's second cold night in the tree. Baby Boy had a sad, pitiful cry as I prepared and climbed up to him, and when I began to get near him, he got scared. He had no place to go, since he was already near the top of the tree and the limbs were too short to go far, but after h...

Cats don't care about holidays, and I have rescued cats in trees on every holiday there is, including Christmas day. This Christmas, I got a call for a cat that climbed or fell down just before I arrived there, but, at that moment, I got another call for a case where two cats were in the same tree. It was fortunate that the first cat came down on its own, because, otherwise, I would not have had time to rescue the other cats before sundown. By the time I arrived at the second case in Denham Springs, one of the cats came down on its own, but that still left little Darla, the sweet, six-month-old tabby girl, in need of rescue. Darla had already spent one night in the tree and was not happy about it. The tree was skinny, covered with poison ivy vines and had a defect below Darla that weakened the stem. It would not be safe for me to go very high above that defect, so I needed to make sure Darla did not climb any higher. Fortunately, Darla was very cooperative and stayed there while I ...

I don't normally do rescues at night, because I like to be able clearly to assess the tree and the branches where my rope is going to be tied. It is also more difficult to see power lines in the dark or simply forget they are there. So, when Tracy called me to rescue her kitty, Boo, one evening a few days before Christmas, I told her I would be happy to do it the following morning. But then she pleaded with me to see if I could do it that night. Boo had been missing for three nights, and Tracy had just found her in her next-door neighbor's front-yard tree. Boo was pitifully crying to Tracy for help, and Tracy in turn was pleading with me. Since Boo is a very friendly girl and they were located in my own neighborhood, I agreed at least to look at the situation to see if I felt comfortable doing the rescue. I did not like what I saw. When I arrived, Boo was in the tree near some power lines where circled in red. She appeared desperate and likely cooperative, but I was not comfort...

The trend of rescues in sketchy trees continued with the next two rescues. First, there was Pretty Boy, a sweet, two-year-old Siamese in Pass Christian, Mississippi who got stuck at the tip top of a dying Live Oak tree that had been damaged by one of the recent hurricanes. The high winds broke the top off the tree leaving a split half of a rotting stem. Pretty Boy was perched on top of that stem, and he was not happy. His owner, Shannon, was even more distraught, as this kitty was very valuable to her. Pretty Boy had already spent one long night in the tree, and I arrived an hour before sunset to see to it that he did not spend another night there. I struggled awkwardly to reach Pretty Boy, and I can't say I was comfortable putting so much trust in that dead stem even with several other backup ropes holding me to other parts of the tree that were more sound. I climbed only as close to him as I needed to get him and did not spend much time making friends with him. I just grabbed him...

No, it's not an algebraic equation, and it's not the name of a rock band. It's just the story about three different rescues for three unrelated cats. First, was Lucy, the five-month-old gray tabby in Baton Rouge who presented a formidable challenge to me. Lucy climbed all the way to the top of a tree that was unsafe for me to climb, and there were no other trees close by that I could climb instead. She is circled in red in this picture, but she was actually a bit higher when I first arrived. The branch she was on had a significant hollow at it's base (green circle), and I feared it would not support my weight. The branch closest to it also suffered the same defect and also could not be used to climb. There was nothing there that would allow me to get close to Lucy safely, so I hauled up an "elevator" to her. The elevator is just a carrier with the top removed and food inside. I hauled it up to the fork just below Lucy, and that was as high as I could get it. I...

Both of these rescues came in the same afternoon. First, I got a call from Charles in Baton Rouge about a cat in a large, leaning tree in his front yard. He recognized the cat as one that has been roaming the neighborhood and likely belonged to a neighbor, and it had been stuck about 20 feet high for seven days. The long-hair tortie would meow to people below, so I thought she would be tame and receptive to my approach. When I climbed up to her, however, she was clearly distressed and went around the large trunk to a limb on the other side where I could not see her. When I peered around the trunk to where we could see each other, she decided that was too much and climbed down the tree. She disappeared in the bushes below, and no one saw which direction she ran. I hope she went home and is safe. The next rescue was for Simba in St. Amant. This two-year-old white and orange boy had been stuck 30 feet high in a neighbor's tree for two nights. Simba is a sweet, sociable boy, but I had ...