Cat Rescue Guy

Believe it or not, Kitty really is an indoor cat.  He just has this knack for sneaking out the door at unexpected times and making a run for it.  He lives way out in the country, so once he gets out, there are real dangers out there that would scare any cat.  So it is not surprising that each time Kitty has escaped, he has found himself up a tree.  His owners, Austin and Erika, have tried so hard to keep him from escaping, and they have managed to keep him inside almost a year since he last escaped and climbed a tree.  But Kitty is a devious boy, and he found a way to get out one more time. After Kitty escaped, Austin and Erika looked for him but could not find him.  They looked in all the areas he has frequented in the past, but he was not to be found.  They knew to look for him in the trees, and they called for him and listened for him to respond, but still they could not find him.  They searched for him for five days with no luck, before some...

Cats are not very selective about the trees they climb.  Especially if they are being chased by a predator, the closest tree will do no matter what it's condition.  And so it was with Kitty, the solid white cat.  For whatever reason, Kitty climbed a tall dead tree stump.  The top of the tree had broken off long ago providing a safe cavity in the top of the remaining stem where Kitty could safely perch and not worry about falling, even when she fell asleep.  But she found herself 20 feet high on a post of a tree with no branches, and Kitty did not know how to climb down. To make matters worse, the tree she was in was dead and rotted to the point that it was just barely standing.  It was clearly not safe for me to climb, but fortunately, there was a healthy, taller tree right next to it that I could climb and use to reach Kitty.  Compared to the view from the ground, I am often surprised at how different things look once I get up into the tree. ...

There are several ways to get a cat out of a tree, most of which involve climbing the tree to bring him down.  Sometimes, however, the cat offers another option as Penelope did on this occasion. Penelope is a sweet and pretty 1-year old calico who climbed a massive live oak tree and became stuck in a large junction of the trunk thirty feet high.  She had been in the tree for three nights before I arrived, and some of those nights had been very cold.  The tree was a huge and very old, moss-laden live oak that inspired in me a sense of awe and admiration.  It would be an honor to climb this tree.  But Penelope never gave me the chance. To install my climbing rope in a tree, I first use a very large sling-shot to shoot a weighted bag, like a bean bag, into the spot I select in the tree.  This bag is attached to a special string and pulls the string into the tree with it.  Once the string is draped over the limb I want, I use the string to pull...

I have never had a more cooperative cat than Dorito.  He could not wait for me to get up to him, so he came down to me.  He came down only a few feet, but that is a long distance for a cat going straight down a tree.  He got in my lap, crawled up on my shoulder, and, most surprisingly of all, he voluntarily jumped into the rescue bag by himself.  I did not have to stuff him into the bag.  He willingly jumped into it all on his own. Dorito is a 4 year old orange tabby who is an indoor cat, but he slipped out one afternoon and climbed the pine tree in his backyard.    His human family and friends did everything they could think of to help him down.   They even managed to convince the chief of the fire department to come out, but, not surprisingly, he could not do anything to help.   When I arrived, he had been in the tree one very cold night, and I found him almost 50 feet high crying for help. I had a very difficult time getting my ...

Poor, little Midnight.  This black cat had been stuck in the tree next to his house for five nights, and most of those nights were below freezing.  He was cold, weak, dehydrated and tired of being stuck in that tree, and I could hear it in his impatient, raspy voice. Prior to climbing the tree, I was told that Midnight was a very sweet cat who was very sociable with strangers.  That is what I always love to hear, because it usually means that the cat will be cooperative and the rescue will go quickly.  There are no guarantees about that, of course, and Midnight proved to be one of those exceptions. It did not take long to learn that Midnight was not going to be one of those cooperative cats.  He began hissing and spitting at me before I could climb even 10 feet high.  While I have experienced a few mildly hissing cats in my rescues before,  I have never had a cat hiss and spit at me as much as Midnight did.  He made it very clear early on ...