Ron's Second Rescue

Whenever I go to rescue a cat a second time, I always wonder how he will react to me based on his experience with his first rescue. Did he perceive his first rescue as frightening, traumatic, pleasant, or just neutral? Even if the first rescue was very gentle and pleasant from my point of view, did he experience it differently? Does he even remember the first rescue? When I approach him this second time, will he regard me as predator or rescuer? Those are some of the concerns passing through my mind as I went, for the second time, to rescue Ron, the cool, orange tabby boy in Mandeville, Louisiana.

I went over my notes from Ron's first rescue to remind me how that rescue developed and how he reacted. I remember feeling disappointed that Ron showed no interest in stepping on my lap even though he was a frequent lap-sitter with his family. I remember reluctantly dropping the cat bag around him from above and lifting him to collect the bag beneath him. I did it as gently as possible, but it was more handling than I wanted for a sweet boy like this. I never know for sure how a cat feels about being enclosed in the bag, but most don't appear to mind it at all. It even seems to calm them. Ron seemed to handle it well, but, regardless, he may now look back on that time he was stuck in the tree as a miserable time and associate me with it as well. I never know what to expect, but I always try to make each rescue as gentle and pleasant as possible so that they don't have any reason to fear me on subsequent rescues. Plus it's just the right thing to do.

Ron had plenty of reason to be upset with me even before I started climbing up to him, because I had trouble getting my line into the tree above him and had to shoot it into the tree six times before I succeeded. Most cats would be upset at just one attempt, but Ron is a cool dude, and it didn't seem to bother him at all. He was perched out on the same limb in the same tree as before, and when he saw me climbing up to him, he came back toward the trunk to meet me. He wasn't excited to see me. He just calmly and unemotionally stepped into place as if catching a daily bus to take him to work. We exchanged greetings, and then I spread the bottom of the cat bag over my lap. He stepped on my lap with just his front legs first, and after a few more pets, he placed his back legs on my lap and then plopped his whole body down for a rest. After spending so much time on a hard, thin limb, he felt good to have a large, soft lap, and he took advantage of it. I welcomed him there on my lap for a minute, pulled the bag up around him, and then kept him on my lap for the entire ride back down to the ground.

Ron did not seem to mind being in the bag, and he emerged from the bag in his house with no fanfare or excitement. It was as routine as stepping off the bus at the end of a long day at work. He came back outside to see me again before I left, but then I packed up and stepped into my own bus to go back home after a short afternoon of rescue work. But I'm not as cool as Ron. I enjoy my work, and it shows on my face. Maybe I will see you again, Ron, and I hope you remember me fondly as I do you.