Grover and Mimi

It was one of my most dreaded rescue scenarios: a feral juvenile cat stuck in a huge tree. The tree was a large, spreading oak that is wider than it is tall, and it had large limbs extending forty feet from the trunk. That gave a scared cat plenty of room to roam, and there was no way I would be able to reach it at the end of those limbs. To be fair, we knew nothing about this cat, so maybe I would get lucky and be able to befriend it, but I wasn't feeling optimistic about that. We didn't know if this gray tabby was a male or female, but I will just assume it was a male and call him Grover.

The tree was on Maria's property in Tickfaw, Louisiana, but she didn't know about this cat until her neighbors pointed it out and said that it had been stuck there for three nights. Being the animal lover that she is, Maria sought to find help for this kitty and eventually found me. I arrived to find the cat resting next to the trunk on a limb about halfway up the tree. When I began to install my rope, Grover got spooked, jumped several feet down to a lower limb, and walked forty feet out to the end. There was no point in finishing the installation of my rope now. Instead, since he was now much closer to the ground, I thought about simply shaking him off the limb into a tarp being held by Maria and the neighbors. When I shot a line over Grover's limb so I could use it to shake the limb, he got spooked again and went about halfway back toward the trunk. I went back to Plan A and finished installing my rope in the tree at the trunk and planned to climb up to Grover's limb with the expectation that he would respond by going right back out to the end of the limb. Indeed, that is exactly what happened. Even though I was twenty feet away when I stepped on his limb, that was too close for Grover, and he decided to take his chances back at the end of the limb. I went back down to the ground and used the line I had already placed on his limb to shake him out. It didn't take long. Grover wanted to go out on his own control, so he jumped out as far as he could into the wooded area and ran off. It's not the most satisfying or ideal end to his stay in the tree, but it was the best we could do. I never got close to Grover, so I have no pictures of him.

The next morning, I went to rescue Alvis's cat, Mimi, in Baton Rouge. Mimi mysteriously appeared in his yard six months ago as a very small kitten. None of the neighbors knew or claimed this kitten, so Alvis adopted it and named it Mimi on the assumption that it was a female. A few weeks later, it became apparent that this kitten was a male, but the name stuck, and that is why we have a boy named Mimi. Mimi doesn't care.

Mimi was now up a tree at the corner of his own backyard because the neighbor's dog actually jumped the fence and chased him. Mimi was lucky to escape, but he was now stuck in the tree, and Alvis was very distressed about it. Mimi is normally a friendly guy, but the noises and movements I made climbing up to him made him a little nervous. Once I was close to him, I could see him thinking about climbing higher, so I slowed down and gave him the reassurance he needed to calm down and trust me. Once that was done, we were buddies. Since he had a history of positive experiences with a carrier, I held my carrier up to him fully expecting him to walk inside without any reservation, but that didn't happen. He wasn't afraid of it, but he wouldn't walk inside. I put food in the back of the carrier, and he still would not go inside. After some more reassurances, I gave him one more try, and this time, he walked in. With him safely inside the carrier, I took him down and gave him to Alvis who took him inside the house. Alvis had been very worried about Mimi and had stayed up all night trying to find a way to get him down, so it was rewarding to see how relieved and relaxed he was now that the crisis was finally over. Mimi is safe at home, so, hopefully, Alvis can now get some rest.