Cat Rescue Guy

It's very common for me to go rescue a cat in a tree, but it's very rare to go rescue two cats in a tree at the same time. Yes, these two litter-mate sisters, Coco and Bella, got stuck in a tree together in their back yard in Gulfport, Mississippi, and they had been stuck there for two nights. Nancy agonized over how to get them down and even managed to get the fire department to come out, but their ladder just scared one of the cats even higher, so they backed off and gave up.   What concerned me about this rescue is that Nancy told me that the cats are semi-feral. Nancy is the only one who can touch them, and they typically run from everyone else. Nancy's daughter and son-in-law were there visiting for the holidays, but they never even see the cats because they always run and hide from them. It's difficult enough to rescue one scared cat in a tree, and now I have two. I wasn't sure how I was going to handle this.   I had hoped that the commotion I created in the t...

Catfish is an inside-only kitty who had just moved to his new home near Bogalusa only two weeks earlier when he escaped and got stuck in a tree in his back yard. He had been stuck there for two cold nights before I arrived to bring him down. He was not comfortable with my presence up there in the tree, but, to get farther away from me, he would have had to go down a very steep section of the branch. Each time he approached that steep, downward path to escape me, he found it too frightening and pulled back. He was trapped on a few feet of the relatively level part of the branch between me and that downward slope. I  had to spend a long time with him to earn his trust, but he never quite warmed up to me. Instead, he did the most unusual thing, and I have seen only one other cat do this with me several years ago. He came closer to me by backing up to me. I don't know what he was thinking. Maybe he wanted to back up to where the branch was more level and simply forgot about me or thoug...

When Tony noticed a strange cat outside on his patio one evening, he went out to investigate, but something spooked the cat and it climbed up a tree in the back yard. He tried to coax it down, but the kitty was stuck almost 30 feet high. The kitty was wearing some kind of collar, so he posted on Nextdoor to see if he could find the owner. When I arrived to rescue the kitty, it had been in the tree less than two days. She turned out to be a super-sweet, relaxed and friendly kitty. She trusted me from the start and  made friends with me quickly. I was disappointed to see that the collar she was wearing had no contact information, so I checked her for a microchip while we were still in the tree, but no microchip was found. I spread out the cat bag on my lap, and she stepped on it as if she already knew what to do. I enjoyed having this sweet baby in my lap, and I hated to pull the bag up around her. She seemed to understand the whole procedure and accepted it all as routine. I took he...

Panther did it again. Just five days after his first rescue, Panther climbed the same tree again and was stuck there for two nights. He was cooperative and friendly for the first rescue, and I was hoping for more of the same the second time around, because I didn't have a good and safe way to get out near the end of the leaning tree where he was perched. In spite of his reputation for running from strangers, he came to me the first time, so I thought he would come to me the second time as well. It took him a minute longer to think about it this second time, but Panther did come to me and make it easy for me again. He was just as sweet and friendly as before, but when I placed the carrier in front of him for the ride down, this time he balked. He wasn't afraid of the carrier. It just appeared that he remembered having an unpleasant time in there the last time even though it ultimately ended with his rescue and freedom on the ground. Nope. Panther did not want to go into the carr...

I had two rescues scheduled that morning, and Kratos, the sweet, gray-and-white tabby, was the first. This three-year-old boy had slipped out a window of his Baton Rouge home and climbed a Crepe Myrtle tree in the back yard, and he had been stuck there for one night. He wasn't very high, and he let me make friends with him right away, so his rescue was pretty quick and easy. He is safely inside now and relieved to be there, and so is the rest of his family. Panther is a young, black cat in Denham Springs, and he is not known for his friendly ways with strangers. Panther had climbed a small, leaning Tallow tree and had been stuck there for one night. It would not be safe to climb just the Tallow tree, so I set my rope in a taller Oak tree near it and pulled myself over to Panther. I was very pleased to see that Panther was willing to greet me and let me make friends with him. If he had walked out to the end of the tree as I had been expecting, I would not have been able to reach him...

I love to rescue cool kitties like Baby, the sweet, four-month-old brown tabby girl who was stuck for one night in a tree in her yard in Covington. She was never scared, cautious, worried or excited. She simply watched me climb up to her as if this was a routine part of her day, and she appeared almost bored when I greeted her and made friends with her. No, there was no need for an increase in heart rate or energy level just because some stranger decided to join her in a tree, but she did perk up slightly when I invited her into an open carrier. She stepped inside the carrier with no trouble, and I closed the door and brought her down. Just another routine day at the office for Baby.

Yikes! That and a few other words were the first out of my mouth when I first saw where Coco was in the tree. This little ten-month-old Siamese girl had climbed all the way to the tip-top of the stem of a Sweetgum tree near her home in Walker, and that stem was too skinny for me to climb. I feared that I would not be able to reach her even with a 12-foot rescue pole. I climbed up the tree to the base of her stem without a clear rescue plan in my mind. I wanted simply to get up there and see how it looked and felt up close and then decide what to do. When I reached the base of her stem which was about 55 feet high, I looked up at her and saw that she had already climbed down a foot or two but was still at least 15 feet away. When she saw me and heard me coaxing her down to me, she became motivated to give it a try. After spending two nights in the tree, she certainly did not want to stay there any longer. It was a tense and terrifying sight to see as she scrambled down that tiny stem wh...

Tofu is a super-sweet, one-year-old kitty who was staying temporarily with his grandparents in Denham Springs when he found a way out and got stuck in the next-door neighbor's tree. He had been stuck there for one night when I rescued him. He was friendly and cooperative, so all I had to do was simply spread the cat bag over my lap, wait for him to step on it, and then pull the bag up over him. I love rescuing cute kitties like Tofu. The rescue was short and sweet, and the video below, at only 39 seconds, is even shorter. https://youtu.be/cJ1mjGZovIo

Except for the fact that Missy is a marble Bengal cat, there were three other things that made this rescue notable to me: (1) the length of time -- nine days -- that Missy was stuck in the tree, (2) the emotional reunion of Missy with her owner, Janet, and (3) Missy's puzzling behavior in the tree. That last one needs further explanation. Missy is not known to be a sociable kitty with strangers, so I knew it would be a challenge to get close enough to this four-and-a-half-year-old to rescue her, and the fairly large tree she was in gave her plenty of room to escape me. I needed to be especially charming to her in order to get close to her, but it became clear right from the start that all my charm was not going to be enough. When I climbed up level with her, I was suspended immediately next to a large limb, and, roughly level with that limb, was another large limb that extended roughly parallel with the first one. Beyond that was yet another large limb extending from the trunk at t...