Noonie

Three weeks. Exactly twenty-one days. That's how long Noonie was stuck in the tree in her front yard in Basile. To make matters worse, she was stuck in one spot and could not move very much the entire time. People get bedsores just from being on a soft bed for a long time, so it's no surprise that Noonie developed sores and raw spots from rubbing and pressing against the rough bark of a tree for three weeks. She had a bloody sore on her upper leg and scraped the hair off the bottom of her feet, and I can only imagine how tired her muscles must feel. Poor baby.
 Her owner, Linda, was sick with worry the whole time, and she could not find anyone who could get her kitty down. Eventually, a friend of mine heard about the cat from a friend of Linda's and brought us all together.

Noonie's rescue was not easy. Noonie was sweet and cooperative, but the tree and the spot she was in were problematic. Noonie was 40 feet high on a slightly leaning stem that had no limbs below her, and the stem leaned toward some power lines. With the power lines so close, there was no safe way to shoot a line into the tree to install my rope in any useful place, and, to reach Noonie, I would have to pass by a power line within less than the required minimum distance. I had to climb up to Noonie using a slow, tedious and strenuous method, and I stayed on the opposite side of the stem from the power line while making sure my rope hung along the stem away from that danger. It took me a long time to reach her, but that was the safest way to get to her, and it had the additional benefit of giving her plenty of time to adjust to my approach.

Noonie looked no less alert than any other cat I have rescued. She sniffed my hand and let me make friends with her easily enough. I figured she would be thrilled to walk into a carrier for a comfortable change of accommodations, but I must have figured wrong. She looked inside but did not go in. To make the carrier even more appealing, I opened a can of food, let her have a sniff and taste, and then put the food in the back of the carrier. That was all the encouragement she needed. She stepped inside, and I closed the door and brought her down.

Back on the ground, we turned her loose on the front porch, and she enjoyed the freedom to move and get some loving from Linda again. She had already eaten the whole can of food in the carrier, but she drank quite a bit of water while Linda watched. It was a pleasure to see Linda with a relieved smile on her face after three weeks of stress and helpless agony. She is closely monitoring Noonie, but, except for the raw spots, Noonie is looking and acting just fine.

I failed to get any close pictures of her in the tree, because my camera man turned the camera off and on a few times during the lengthy rescue and forgot to turn it back on for the good part.