Cat Rescue Guy

Whenever I see news about an approaching hurricane or tropical storm, I automatically expect to get a call for a rescue just before the storm arrives. That seems to be the way it works, and that trend continued with the approach of hurricane Laura. The weather was already getting ominous when Andrea called me to rescue her cat, and there were only a few hours left before the violent outer band of storms was due to arrive. Cats just seem to have a knack for getting themselves in trouble at bad times. Fortunately, Andrea found him just in time and called me right away. When I arrived, I could hear the cat crying, but I had trouble finding him in the tree.  He was about 30 feet high on the lowest limb of a Pine tree in his own front yard, but only a portion of his head was poking around the trunk. His name is Ham, and he is seven years old and the last surviving kitty of his litter, all of which were named after deli meats. They were born to a feral mother at Andrea's house, but Andre...

Stormy is an inside cat, but lately this two-year-old, tuxedo kitty has been hearing the call of the wild and has been darting out the door when he sees a chance. After his most recent escape, he climbed up a tree in his backyard in Ocean Springs, Mississippi and got stuck there. He was 25 feet high and beyond Tiffany's reach and abilities. He did this once before, and, after one night in the tree, he either came down or fell down and appeared at the door ready to come back inside. Tiffany was hoping he would do that again, but this time, he kept staying in the tree, and Tiffany was getting more and more worried. Stormy has one feline sibling, an orange tabby named Sunny, and he also has two canine siblings, but on the same day Stormy got stuck in the tree, one of his canine siblings had to be put to sleep due to cancer. Tiffany was stressed enough about the loss of her beloved dog, but now she had the additional worry about losing her Stormy as well.   She contacted Bob Reese,...

When Andrea let her dogs out in the backyard of their Hattiesburg, Mississippi home, one of them spotted a cat intruder in the yard and immediately began to chase it. The cat ran up a large oak tree near the fence. Andrea has two cats of her own, and her two dogs are cat-friendly, so she was concerned about this cat she had never seen before and hoped it would come down on its own when she brought the dogs back inside. Andrea kept checking on the cat, but it was always still on the same limb about 20 feet high. When she found the cat was still there the following morning, she already knew who to contact. When she was a student at Mississippi State University in Starkville, Bob Reese was one of her faculty advisers, and she knew he rescues cats in trees. Since Hattiesburg is closer to me, Bob asked me if I would be interested in handling it, and I agreed to do it. This unknown kitty in Andrea's tree had remained mostly quiet, so I was concerned that this was a feral cat. General...

Stella got off to a rough start in life, but she and her three other litter-mates got profoundly lucky when Christie found them and took them all home with her. Christie is an extraordinarily competent and compassionate cat rescuer who has rescued countless cats over many years, nursed them to good health and placed them in good homes. Stella was a cutie -- as can be seen in this picture of her from that time -- but she was a bit of a challenge in that she was the runt of the litter and not in good health. Under Christie's care, however, Stella improved and eventually caught up to her siblings. Stella was the last to be adopted, but she found the perfect home and fit with Liz, and the two of them have bonded very strongly over the past year. Stella escaped the house recently and quickly learned a very harsh lesson: there is a mean cat out there. That cat lives next door but considers Stella's yard as her own territory and promptly chased Stella up the nearest tree. The tree is ...

So many unanswered questions. From where did this small tortie kitten come? Where are her siblings and mama? Why is she 20 feet high in this tree? How long has she been there? We know the kitten was in the tree at least two nights, because  Amanda and Catherine heard it cry in their backyard. They were unable to locate it because it did not cry often, and it could not possibly be seen from the ground because it was 20 feet high in the large branch union of a very large tree. It was not until the kitten poked her head over the edge that they finally saw it, and at that point they called me to see if I could help. The first time I saw the kitten was when I climbed up above her.  I am not good at estimating the age of a cat, but this kitten appeared to be somewhere between eight and twelve weeks old. She was nestled in the space between some very large branches rising above her on all sides. She was on the opposite side of the trunk from me, and if I were to reach through the sma...