Crimson and Kitten

Tamara was very upset when she found her cat, Crimson, up high in a tree in the woods behind her rural home near New Iberia, Louisiana. Crimson is one and a half years old now, but Tamara bottle-fed that sweet girl and raised her since she was first found as a tiny kitten. Tamara felt so helpless seeing her baby so high in the tree, and she did not hesitate to post desperate pleas for help on social media. Someone referred her to me, and I arrived there on the morning after Crimson's second night in the tree.

I was a bit disheartened by the sight of the tree, and, unfortunately, I failed to get a picture of it to show here. Very little of the tree was visible because it was thoroughly smothered by a large mass of mature Poison Ivy. While there was plenty of Poison Ivy foliage, I could not find any foliage belonging to the tree. This tree was either dead or dying, but it appeared to be plenty sturdy enough to climb. The trouble would be getting my rope installed since there were only two suitable places to use for that, and they were both very close together at the top of the tree and very close to the cat. Even though Crimson was crying loudly and frequently for help, I could not find her at first. I had to get my binoculars to see her, and I found her inside a large nest at the top of the tree about 40 feet high. The spots where I needed to shoot my weighted bag for installing my rope were immediately below the nest, and both were tangled with vines. If I missed and hit the nest, it would probably knock Crimson out of the tree. I aimed for the lower spot and got very lucky with my shot. I actually missed my target, but the weight sailed beautifully through the upper spot barely missing the nest as well as the vines.

After installing my rope, I began climbing up through the cloud of Poison Ivy. Contact with the vine was unavoidable, but I don't worry about that much anymore because my body seems to have adapted to it. When I first started doing rescues, my skin would develop the usual itchy rash, and it was pretty miserable until I eventually learned about a very effective "cure" for it. At the same time, my reaction gradually lessened to the point that it doesn't bother me very much. I always wear long-sleeve shirts and gloves, even during our hot summers, because I run into Poison Ivy in most rescue situations. For this case, I also added a neck and lower face covering since I would be engulfed in the vine.

When I installed my rope in the tree, all that activity so close to the nest caused Crimson to climb a little higher up the steeply angled limb. She waited there and watched me as I climbed up to her, and then she studied me some more to see if I was safe. She quickly determined that I was not a threat, and she began to come back down to me. Once she was close, she studied me some more, and I introduced myself to her. She sniffed my hand and let me pet her, but she was a young busy-body and felt the need to walk away and come back a few times. That worked to our advantage because as she moved around, she eventually moved down to a lower limb that placed her even closer to me. I gave her some licks from a squeeze-tube treat, and she enjoyed that enough that I used it to lure her onto my lap. She placed her front legs on my lap but kept her back legs on the limb. I picked up her back end and placed her back legs on my lap, and she was comfortable with that. She was now resting on the bottom of the cat bag, so I pulled the sides of the bag up around her, secured her inside, and took her back down to the ground. She is safe at home now, and Tamara is finally enjoying some relief after two days of immense stress. And, yes, I did develop a rash on both of my forearms, but it wasn't bad and required no treatment.

That afternoon, I got a call from Mike to see if I could rescue his cat named Kitten in Denham Springs. I rescued Kitten twice before, but the last rescue was three and a half years ago. I remember that Kitten gave me some trouble then, but I could not remember the details. It looked like such a simple case. Kitten was only 20 feet high on the lowest limb of a large, roomy Oak, and installing my rope would be easy. When I climbed up to her, she didn't climb higher or even look away for an escape route. She just stayed crouched there on the limb and did her best to ignore me. She was not afraid of me, but she didn't want to have anything to do with me. I tried a squeeze-tube treat, and it took a long time for her to try it and admit that she actually liked it, but I still could not lure her any closer to me. My plan to lure her onto my lap was looking futile despite my patient persistence. I could not get this stubborn girl to warm up to me at all. Eventually, I had to admit defeat and settle for grabbing her by the scruff and bagging her. She handled it very well considering how long it took her to allow me to pet her beforehand. She is happy to be safe at home, but she would never admit that to me.