Phoenix

The cry that ten-month-old Phoenix made from up in the tree was so distressed that I thought she was losing her footing and feared falling, but, no, she was on a comfortable limb freely moving about. She was simply tired of being stuck in the tree in her neighbor's yard in Slidell, and she wanted everyone to know about it and do something about it. Now! She was only 30 feet high, but she was in a spot that was awkward for me to reach. Once I was close enough to reach out to her, she sniffed my hand and eventually let me pet her, but she didn't trust me enough to come any closer to me. From the way she looked at the carrier as I pulled it up, I got the sense that she was not comfortable with it, so I did not even attempt to give her a chance to step inside it lest I scare her farther away. The awkward position I was in made it impossible to make a lap for her, so I prepared the cat bag on my arm, inched close enough to pet her better, grabbed her by the scruff and pulled the bag around her. She didn't like being bagged, but she felt much better once she got back home and settled.