The cat rescue business has been pretty quiet lately, but it has started picking up again beginning with a juvenile kitty whose name I don't know. I will just call him Tangerine since he is a little orange boy. Actually, I'm not even sure if he is a boy because I never got a good look. He couldn't be more than six months old, and he was stuck forty feet high for three nights in a tree at the edge of the wooded area behind Lisa's backyard in Denham Springs, Louisiana. He belongs to Lisa's next-door neighbor who was not home, so I never got to learn anything about him.The only thing that I knew for sure was that he was scared. He appeared to be potentially friendly and cooperative when I arrived, but installing my rope so close above him frightened him down to the next crotch. As I climbed up to him, all I could see at first was his backend, and I could not seem to get him to look at me. I didn't want to startle him, so I kept calling to him. It wasn't until I got above him that I could see why he didn't look. He had poked his head under a vine stem which was pressing down on his neck and limiting his movement. He was very uncomfortable with me so close, and he felt trapped. I tried to reassure him, but it took a long time, and, when I would touch him, he reacted strongly to it. It took me several minutes to desensitize him to my touch and calm him, but it appeared to be working. I felt it was best that I grab him by the scruff and bag him, so I broke the stem that was across his neck to free him, and then I bagged him. I held him in my arms for a minute, and he seemed fine and relaxed. I brought him down to the ground, and Lisa took him home for me.
The next rescue was for Kitty Baby, a beautiful, eight-year-old brown tabby girl who lives with Kim in rural St. Francisville, Louisiana. Kitty Baby had been in the same spot in this same Cedar tree a few weeks earlier and managed to climb down on her own, but this time she wasn't budging and spent one night in the tree. She did not appear very happy to see me when I climbed up to her, so I spent some time trying to charm her, and, when that failed, I tried ignoring her. Eventually, she warmed up to me quite nicely, even to the point that I easily lured her onto my lap. I had prepared the cat bag on my lap, so once she settled there, I pulled the bag up around her with no fuss. She was quite happy to be back on the ground again, and Kim was even moreso.
