Cat Rescue Guy

Hannah contacted me to see if I could help with a cat stuck in a tree behind her parent's house in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. They had been hearing a cat crying off and on for five days, and they just discovered it in a very large oak tree just behind their backyard fence on the bank of a creek. They didn't recognize the cat, so I gave them my usual instructions about asking their neighbors, checking for Lost Cat signs and online posts, and posting notices on the local Nextdoor and Lost Pets sites. It is usually to the finder's advantage to locate the owner so the problem and responsibility can be given to them, and sometimes, the owner may be able to coax the cat down when no one else can. I agreed to go there in the morning, and I hoped that the owner could be found by the time I arrived there. It so happened that there was a Lost Cat flyer that had been placed at all the intersections of the neighborhood, and it was possible this cat could be a match. They called the number...

I was naively expecting an easy rescue when I arrived at Kamryn's house in Livingston, Louisiana that morning, but I was surprised by what I found. Yes, Kamryn told me that her cat was very high, but that is what everyone says, and "high" does not necessarily mean it will be difficult. This kind of "high," however, is different. The cat, Alphie, was in a wooded area at the top of a tall, skinny, and floppy Tallow tree that had no limbs until the top. The height at 60 feet was not a problem, but my weight at the top of a tall, flimsy stick like this would be too much for it to hold without flopping me over until it snapped in two. When trees grow in a wooded setting, they tend to grow tall and skinny in order to reach the sunlight they need. When a cat is stuck in one of these trees, often there are other larger and taller trees nearby that I can climb instead and still be within reach of the cat. That was not the case this time. All the trees were roughly the sa...

How am I supposed to rescue a three-year-old cat who is skittish with strangers and doesn't like anyone to touch her or pick her up? Well, if it's Millie, the long-hair princess kitty in Hammond, Louisiana, the answer is simply to let her step on my lap. Of course, I spread the bottom of the cat bag over my lap first. I wasn't expecting it to be that easy, and I had been planning for all kinds of other options, but I approached Millie gently and slowly, and she responded with trust. That, and she desperately wanted to get down out of that tree after spending one long miserable night there. To be fair, she was certainly nervous when I first approached her, and at one point I could see her looking upward for an escape path even though she really didn't want to go there, but in the end, gentle patience won the game. Millie was slow about getting on my lap. First, she placed only her front legs on my lap and then stepped back on the limb. She did that two more times and eve...

Is this a coincidence? That was my first response when Latonya gave me the address where she found an unknown cat stuck in a tree. The address was only two houses down from the address in Zachary, Louisiana where I rescued a cat for one of her neighbors just one week ago. Latonya did not know the cat or its owner, but I had to wonder if this was the same cat. It's black and white, and it appears friendly, so I thought it could be TT, the sweet cat I rescued before. I contacted TT's owner, Lillian, and learned that she was out of town, but her daughter went over there to check, and, yes, sure enough, it's TT. He did it again. TT's first rescue was very easy. He was in a clean, accessible, front-yard Oak tree, and, after he got over his initial fear of my rope which he thought might be a snake, he was very friendly, came straight to me, and stepped into the carrier. I was expecting the same this second time, so,  when Latonya led me to the tree,  I was a bit dismayed to s...

Two-Face was very distressed at being stuck in that tree in her neighbor's yard in rural Jackson, Louisiana. This energetic, nine-month-old kitty had been stuck for one night, and she was desperate to get down and back home. She loudly begged everyone to help her down, but no one seemed to be doing anything. When I arrived, she pleaded with me to help her, but I, too, seemed no more useful than everyone else until I was eventually ready to climb the tree. She was so happy and energized to see me coming up to her that she started walking far out the limb. At first, I thought she was scared, but she was just so energized that she had to do something. She came right back and was there to greet me when I reached her height. After our easy introductions, she was ready to go home, and she wanted to be sure she didn't miss this ride home. She stepped on my lap before I could get ready for her. As you will hear on the video, the wind that day was very strong and constant, but after she...

Lillian had been searching for her cat, TT, for five days when she finally found him in a neighbor's large Oak tree. She called me right away, but I was busy with another rescue and could not get there until the next morning. One-year-old TT spent a total of five nights in that tree in Zachary, Louisiana, but at least he was on large branches and wasn't nearly as uncomfortable as he would have been in most other trees. Even so, he was mighty desperate to get down, and his pleading cries for help were heart-breaking to hear when I arrived. Even from the ground, I could tell that TT was going to be friendly and cooperative, and I was right. His rescue was easy. I simply held an open carrier in front of him, and he stepped inside for an easy ride back down to the ground where Lillian was waiting to carry him back home. What made the rescue interesting and worthy of a video (below), however, was his initial reluctance to come to me when it was clear he wanted to do so. He kept look...

Poor little Benson. He had such a rough and traumatic day. This one-year-old kitty belonging to Lisa near Loranger, Louisiana went outside, got stuck in an exposed spot in a pitiful Tallow tree,  got tossed around during a long, violent, drenching storm, and then suffered the terrifying experience of being picked up by a catch-pole. I don't like using the catch-pole, but I had no other choices in this situation. The unhealthy, slender tree was one-sided and leaning, and Benson went up near the top of the stem where I could not go without breaking the entire stem. A bolder cat would have come down closer to me, but Benson is not a bold boy, and he sat stubbornly there waiting passively for me to come to him. He is a friendly, gentle boy and would have welcomed me if I had come to him, but we were at an impasse. I expected him to handle the catch-pole in a docile manner as most tame cats do, but he hated it and fought it. He grabbed the limb so tightly that I could not pull him away....