Cat Rescue Guy

Becky already had enough to worry about.  Her home was one of the many thousands of homes that had been impacted by the recent flood that devastated so much of this area.  She was working to tear out all the damaged drywall and pile it in front of her house along with all the other ruined furniture and debris.  She didn't need to have her cat, Spike, get stuck in a tree and give her more to worry about. Becky found out about me through Cat Haven, a local cat welfare organization where she volunteered.  When she called me in the late afternoon on Spike's fourth day in the tree, I had just finished mowing my yard and was already tired and dehydrated, but I did not want to keep Becky and Spike waiting any longer.  After I cooled off and had a bite to eat, I went out there and drove down her street which was lined with flood debris in front of almost every house.  There I found Spike resting about 15 feet high in a pine tree that was covered with assorted v...

Hippy did it again.  When I went to rescue him the first time he got stuck in a tree, he was very decisive and had no intention of letting me get close to him.  He tried to jump down to the next branch, but a small limb threw him off course and caused him to fall all the way to the ground.  The second time he got stuck in a tree, it was during a terrible flood that seriously affected his own family territory.  This time, he fell out of the tree, probably while sleeping, and landed with a splash in the flood water below. This third time he was chased up the tree by some loose dogs, and, again, it was during another terrible storm system that was flooding a large area of the southern part of the state.  He had been in the tree for two nights when I got the call to rescue him, and he had already endured some of the worst weather this area has to offer.  The rain had been heavy and almost constant, and the lightning storms had been violent and terrifying. ...

This was a totally different kind of rescue -- so different that I originally had no intention of including it here with my other rescues.  This was not my typical cat-stuck-in-a-tree kind of rescue, though cats and a tree are certainly involved.  What made this case different was that there was a whole litter of kittens involved, and they were stuck, not in a tree, but on the roof of an abandoned car wash building. The car wash had not been used in a long time, but the building was otherwise sound.  It was situated on the back corner of the lot of a busy and well-managed, modern gas station and store immediately adjacent to the back of the parking lot of the McDonald's restaurant next door.  Behind the car wash was a large parking lot for a large strip mall.  All these businesses were located at the intersection of a major thoroughfare and a major four-lane highway in a busy commercial part of the town.  This is not a safe place for a cat to try to m...

Sometimes I rescue a cat, and sometimes I just scare them down.  Beebe was in the latter group.  From what I learned about this sweet 7-year old girl beforehand, I thought there was a chance that she would be happy to see me in the tree.  After all, she has been known to give strangers a friendly greeting in the past, so hopefully she would do so again.  But before I even started climbing, I could tell from her cries that she was feeling a little scared.  As I got higher in the tree, her fear only increased. Beebe (pronounced with two syllables) was about 30 feet high in a very large tree, and I was concerned about her climbing higher or very far out and out of reach on the very long branches.  I set my climbing line almost 20 feet higher than she so that I would be better positioned if she decided to go farther away from me.  I also set the climbing line on the opposite side of the tree from her so that I could climb up above her without being see...

It was a dark and stormy morning.  Actually, it wasn't stormy during the rescue, but it sure was immediately after.  Poor Harvey had already endured a thunderstorm the afternoon before, but on this day, the afternoon thunderstorm came in the morning instead.  While there were dark clouds all around when I arrived, there was no rain, and I could not hear any thunder in the far distance, so I prepared to climb.  Just as I start climbing, I began to hear thunder far, far away. Lightning is a serious threat for any tree climber, but Louisiana ranks second in the nation for deaths by lightning.  Florida is first.  My policy is to abort any rescue whenever I can hear thunder, because the risk of the tree being struck by lightning is very real, and the consequences are often deadly.   But since I learned that Harvey is a friendly boy, even to strangers, I decided to proceed with the rescue with the expectation that it would be quick, and the risk was negl...