Cat Rescue Guy

Kitty is a sweet, four-month-old black kitten with a few small white spots, and she got stuck in a tree in her backyard in Denham Springs. By the time I arrived to bring her down, Kitty had spent two nights in the tree, and she could not stand to be stuck up there another minute. She wanted down, and she wanted down NOW! She cried constantly and loudly to make sure the whole world heard, and the desperation in her cry was heart-breaking and painful to hear. Kitty was about 50 feet high and near the top of the tree. I installed my rope about 10 feet below her, and by the time I climbed up to her, she had come down to greet me there at that point. I did not see how she came down, but I soon learned that this little girl could not stand still. She readily made friends with me there, and I thought this was going to be an easy rescue. But before I knew it, she walked out the limb to my left and then came back and greeted me again. After a quick, unsuccessful attempt to get her to walk insid...

Over these past few weeks, I have been teased with rescue calls that I never got to do because they resolved on their own before I could do anything. Today, however, I finally got my chance  to "get back in the saddle again"  when I was called to rescue an unknown orange and white cat in a Cypress tree in Dana's backyard.  From his talkative manner 30 feet high in the tree, he appeared to be a  friendly boy, but that doesn't necessarily mean he will be cooperative. As it turned out, he was cooperative but only after I had almost exhausted my patience with him. He got scared while I was installing my rope in the tree, and he went out to the end of the limb. He stayed there for a very long time while I tried to coax him to me. Just as I was about to give up and pull up the rescue pole for him, he decided to come to me based on some mysterious whim that only cats can understand. He walked right up to me, gave me a good sniff and let me pet him all over. He was a sweet b...

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...