Wylde and Scooter

This is going to be quick and easy. That is what I thought when I first arrived to rescue Wylde, a friendly four-month-old kitty who belongs to Janie in Biloxi, Mississippi. Wylde was pleading desperately to us on the ground to come rescue him after spending four nights in the tree, and there was no reason to expect him to be anything but friendly and cooperative during a rescue. His family had called all the local rescue resources without success, and they even pulled an "elevator' up to Wylde, but that, too, failed.

Wylde handled my rope installation well, but when I began to climb up to him, I noticed he had a troubled look on his face. He began to back away as I got closer, so I stopped and expected him to calm down after some sweet talk and reassurance. Wylde, however, was not impressed by my sweet talk. In fact, he seemed more troubled by it, and he turned around and began walking far out the long branch of this Live Oak tree. Silly me. I still naively thought I could lure him back to me in time once I was up in the tree with him, but I was sorely mistaken. This "quick and easy" rescue turned into a three-hour marathon of trying to earn the trust of a kitty who never yielded an inch. Thanks to Janie's persistent calling from behind me, I managed to get barely within reach of him, but he had no interest in any kind of treat, he always backed away from my hand, and his view of me never softened one bit.

Wylde was clearly getting very tired, and all he wanted to do was take a nap on a spot just barely within my reach. Several times he settled into that spot and closed his eyes, but as soon as I began to move into position to grab him, he would look up and catch me in the act. We played this game several times before he finally gave me a good chance to grab him by the scruff. He squiggled out of my grip, but my other hand was ready to grab him before he could scoot away from me. I put him in the cat bag and secured him inside with a huge sigh of relief. Even though he was exhausted in the tree, he was a bundle of energy and joy back inside his house.

That same afternoon, once I got back home to Baton Rouge, I got a call about an unknown kitty in a tree next to the street in a residential neighborhood very close to where my friend and very active cat rescuer, Glenda, lives, so I contacted her to see if she knew anything about this cat. I was tired from Wylde's long rescue and drive, and it was getting close to sunset time, but all the reports I was getting described the cat as appearing to be a super sweet kitten who was desperately pleading for help from anyone and everyone below. If this kitty turned out to be easy to rescue, then I had just enough time to do that before dark.

When I arrived at the site, Glenda was there ready to help me in any way she could and was already making arrangements for the cat once I brought him down. The kitten gave me a warm and fuzzy feeling, but the tree most certainly did not. It was actually two trees, a Live Oak and a Crape Myrtle, growing so close together that their trunks were pressing into each other and impeding their growth. The Live Oak was much larger than the Crape Myrtle, and the cat was in the main branch union of the Oak. The Crape Myrtle made it more difficult to get my rope installed in the tree, and by the time I was ready to climb the tree, it was already dark. That is not a problem if the kitten is easy and cooperative, but if he is scared of me and starts climbing higher in the tree, then this will have to wait till the next day. When I climbed up to the kitten, I was very disappointed to see that he became fearful and backed away from me. I tried to lure him back, but nothing was working. When he eventually turned away and began climbing into the darkness away from me, I backed off and came back down. This will have to wait till tomorrow. I could not see where he went, but since all the branches turned upward, I knew he had to be higher. Hopefully, he will come back down during the night and return to his original, comfortable spot.

When I returned the next day, I was disappointed to see that he was not in his original spot in the central branch union. I had to search carefully several minutes before I finally found him up very high at the end of a long, steep branch. That spot was not nearly as secure and comfortable as the one below, and I knew he had spent the night there because the branch was too steep to go back down. There was one other big change in the site that surprised me: the Crape Myrtle was gone. Glenda had noticed the troubles that the Crape Myrtle was causing me the evening before, so she decided to cut that tree down. As it was, the future of both trees was in doubt, so it was best to sacrifice one for the survival of the other. With that tree now out of the way, it was much easier for me to install my rope in the Oak tree.

I climbed up into the tree as close as I could safely get to the kitten. He was out at the flimsy tips of the limb, and, as expected, still unwilling to come any closer to me. Still, I tried to lure him to me, but, just like Wylde the day before, he would not react to anything I offered. After exhausting all my tricks, it was time to use the catch-pole. I stabilized my position as best as I could, pulled the pole and net up to me, practiced the maneuver a few times, and then began to reach the noose out toward the kitten. Seeing the noose coming toward him did not cause him to panic at all, but as he shifted his position and began to move, his rear end fell off the limb. He held on with his front paws and struggled, but he managed to pull himself back up on the limb safely. Once he was stable, I slipped the noose around his body behind his front legs, tightened the noose around him, and then pulled him off the limb and back toward me. He simply surrendered to his fate and handled this indignity without complaint. I slipped him inside the net I had waiting beside me, released him in there, and secured him inside. It's time to take this baby back down.

Again, Glenda was below waiting to assist in any way possible, and she took the kitten. I noticed she was calling him Scooter, so that is the name that stuck at least for the time being. She took him home and released him in a safe place where she said he turned into a very affectionate kitty. She estimates his age to be about five months, and she has already made arrangements to get him neutered and vaccinated. Attempts have been made to find the owner, but he doesn't belong to anyone in that neighborhood. If no one claims him, he will be placed for adoption.