Robin does not know why her one-year-old kitty, Lee-low, climbed the big Cypress tree just behind her back yard, but it was very clear that Lee-low did not know how to come back down. Robin tried to coax Lee-low down, and Lee-low desperately struggled to do it, but the only thing she could do successfully was climb higher. By the time of her second night in the tree, she had climbed all the way to the top, but by the time I arrived to rescue her that morning, she had managed to come back down about ten feet. While I was installing my rope in the tree, she actually climbed down about halfway, and she did it the right way by going down backward. In time, I think she may have climbed all the way down by herself, but I could not guarantee that, and I didn't know how long that might take. She was stalled on a limb about 30 feet high, and my rope was installed, so up I went to get her.Lee-low is not the most sociable of kitties, but there was still hope that I, a stranger, could still make friends with her if I approached her properly. Lee-low's vocalizations let me know that she was a bit distressed to see me coming closer to her, but she remained in place straddling the limb. Indeed, during the entire rescue, she never budged from that spot. When I learned that she sleeps in her carrier at home with her own blanket, I borrowed that blanket to put in my carrier and expected to have a good chance of getting her to step into it. As it turned out, she had no interest in my carrier at all. She ignored it and stared right through it as if it wasn't even there. Since she is not a lap-sitter and doesn't like to be held, my best option was to scruff and bag her. She was letting me pet her and seemed quite comfortable with that, so I gently petted her, massaged her scruff, and then pulled her off that limb and enveloped her in the bag. She took it like a good sport.
