Bear

It's a mystery how this cat suddenly appeared in a tree in the woods by Rachel's rural home near Ethel, Louisiana. Rachel has few neighbors, but she sent a text message to each of them to see if anyone knew anything about this cat. She checked the Lost Pets pages for her area and beyond, but there were no reports about a missing cat like this one. She first heard the cat crying one night but was unable to locate it until the next day high in a tree. All we knew about this cat by the time I arrived the next day was that it had been stuck in the tree for at least two nights.

The cat was hard to find and see. He was resting about 50 feet high in a large fork of the stem, and the gray color of his coat blended in well with the shaggy bark of the tree. If this cat is afraid of me, then this could be a very difficult and long rescue with all the room he has to roam in this very large tree. As I climbed up to him, I was hoping against the odds that he would be friendly, and I was pleased to hear from the quality of his cries as I approached that that might just be the case. When I was level with him, he appeared relaxed and unafraid of me, so I approached him and reached my hand out to him. He sniffed it and let me touch him. This is definitely a tame kitty, and I was starting to feel much better about this rescue.

I spent a lot of time with him trying to get him to step out of that fork onto my lap or into a carrier. He would advance his front legs at times, but I could not get him to bring those back legs into place even when using food to entice him. He had no reaction to the sound of opening a can of food, but he seemed to enjoy eating it. Putting the food in the back end of the carrier was inadequate to get him to go completely inside, so I decided to try some dry food. His ears immediately perked up when he heard that sound, so I placed a trail of dry treats into the carrier, and this time, he finally walked all the way inside. Normally, whenever I try to close the door of the carrier, I have to work to get the cat's tail all the way inside before I can fully close the door.  That was not a problem this time, because, as I was closing the door and realizing that I was seeing his back end for the first time, I learned that this cat does not have a tail. I just rescued a bobtail cat and didn't know it until the end.

I took the kitty in the carrier back down to the ground and carried him out of the woods where Rachel and her daughter were waiting. They had a cage ready for the cat until they could figure out what to do with him. I scanned him for a microchip but did not find one. I transferred him to the cage where they could see him clearly for the first time. I petted him, and he soaked up the loving and attention in the way any sweet and needy cat would do. Rachel and her daughter were already getting attached to the cat, and by the time I got home, they had already named him Bear. They will continue to search for the owner, but they are ready, willing and hoping to keep him if the owner is never found. Whatever bad luck may have happened to put Bear in this tree at this time, he was certainly lucky that Rachel heard him, cared about him, found help, and gave him a new, loving home.