Self-Rescuing Trio

I recently tried to rescue three scared kitties who decided they would rather take matters into their own paws. The first one was Chanel, an eight-year-old black beauty who was stuck in a large, beautiful Cypress tree in Baton Rouge, Louisiana for one night. She seemed calm enough at first, but when I approached her, she decided she would rather take her chances and jump fifteen feet to the ground. I could not see where or how she landed, but she ran off and went back home and is doing very well.

The second kitty was Sister Cat in Slidell who was stuck 40 feet high on the lowest limb of a tall Pine tree for two nights. Sister Cat is a friendly, six-year-old girl who probably would have let me rescue her, but she got very spooked when I shot my line into the tree far above her and decided she would just come down on her own. She did a good job of it too. She backed down almost all 40 feet of that Pine tree while we waited down below cheering for her and holding a sheet for her if she fell. She worked her way all the way down until she either jumped or fell the last three feet into the sheet, and she was quite proud of herself for doing so. So was I.

The third kitty was a semi-feral, black-and-white, two-year-old boy in Ethel, Louisiana who had been stuck in a tree for five nights. I approached him very slowly, but I could see that I was not making much progress in earning his trust. When I came just a little bit too close, he darted out of there and jumped over to the main stem of the tree where he clung vertically to the side for a long time while deciding what to do next. I could not go over there quickly to get above him to prevent him from climbing higher, so I held a long pole above him. I thought he would figure out how to climb down backward, but he was too scared to try. He moved sideways on the opposite side of the trunk where I could not see him, and I moved the pole through a fork there in hopes that it would discourage him from climbing higher. I could not see what he did next, but the result was that he lost control and did a couple cartwheels in the air before landing properly on the ground with all four feet. He was soon back at home eating and doing fine.