Piper is a three-year-old kitty in Mandeville who loves Kirsten and Kirsten's mother and grandmother, but she doesn't like anyone else, especially strangers. She was described as a very skittish and feisty cat, so I was not optimistic about getting to be pals with her, but, because she was so sweet with the ones she trusted, I thought I might be able to get her to warm up to me a little bit. But I was wrong. She remained cold and stone-faced the whole time, and she growled at me when I held my hand, or even food, too close. The hard part of this rescue, however, was just getting close to her. She was in a very large tree, and when I began to set my rope in one part of the tree, she ran off to the opposite side. When I installed another rope on the other side, she ran back to the first side. The only reason I was able to catch up to her was because I got lucky when she went out on a long limb, and I was able to climb up to that limb and block her escape path back to the stem. She was 45 feet high and had no place to go now without going directly toward me, and this was where she stood her ground and refused to let me into her heart at all. I thought it best at this point to set a trap for her on her limb, so that is what I did. I went back down to the ground and out of sight. After thirty minutes, I found her trapped inside, so I climbed back up the tree and gently lowered her to the ground where Kirsten took her inside. It took me only three hours and three climbs up the tree to get her down, but Piper had been in the tree for five hot days without any rain, so she suffered more than I did. But she is safe and comfortable at home now, and extreme efforts are being made to make sure this inside kitty never escapes again.
Note: the yellow bungee cords are used only to hold the trap in place temporarily while I secure it with lashing straps.
