Cessna

When Jonathan's daughter closed the door to their home in rural Ponchatoula, Louisiana, she didn't notice that the latch didn't quite catch. The family left without knowing that the door would  soon open itself slightly and attract the attention of their indoor-only cat, Cessna. This new portal to a huge, interesting, outside world must have been irresistible to nine-month-old Cessna, and when the family returned home, they found the door ajar and Cessna missing. They searched all over but could not find her. The daughter was especially bonded with Cessna, and she felt sick with guilt over her mistake and the result it caused. After five days of fruitless searching, they were beginning to feel hopeless when Jonathan finally heard Cessna crying from a tree beyond a neighbor's house almost 500 feet away from home. Cessna was stuck high in a huge Sweetgum tree, and had likely spent the past five days there suffering through some cold nights. It was late in the afternoon when Jonathan found me and called, so we made arrangements to rescue her the next morning.

I could tell by the way Cessna was crying to us below and walking from one side of the huge tree to the other that she was ready for a rescue and would be cooperative. That's a good thing, too, because in this huge tree with extremely long branches, rescuing an uncooperative kitty would be very difficult. As expected, she came toward me when I climbed up to her, but she stopped a few feet short of coming all the way to me, not because she didn't trust me, but because the limb at that point curved downward too much and was too slippery. That wasn't a problem for me. All I had to do was hold the open carrier in front of her so she could easily step inside. She stepped inside the carrier, but when I began to pull it slowly closer to me so I could reach the door, she got nervous and backed out. I opened a can of food to place in the back of the carrier thinking that would keep her occupied long enough for me to pull the carrier closer to me so I could close the door, but that turned out to be unnecessary. Once she noticed the food, she suddenly had the courage to come down that steep, slippery limb all the way to me. Now that she was so close, I wouldn't need to move the carrier to reach the door when she stepped inside, so I placed the food in the back of the carrier, held the carrier on my lap, and watched happily as she stepped back inside again. I closed the door with no trouble and brought her down.

It is very rewarding for me to know that Cessna can join Jonathan's daughter in bed every night again and that their bond has been restored. There is also a bond between Cessna and her canine brother, Teddy, who has been looking for her ever since she disappeared. He, too, is happy to have her back for their afternoon naps.