Cat Rescue Guy

Whenever I get a call to rescue an unknown cat, I never know quite what to expect. This time, however, I had a good idea that it would be a friendly cat. When Jesse called me for the rescue, he told what he had already done to rescue the cat himself, and the the cat's cooperative reaction to his attempts was a very positive sign. Jesse and his wife, Nina, had discovered the cat in a large pine tree at the edge of the woods on the property the day before. They did not recognize the cat, but were just as determined to help it as if it were their own. The cat was on the lowest limb of the tree but was still a little over 40 feet high. The limb was partially broken and angled downward several feet. Jesse made a valiant and almost successful effort to climb a ladder as high as he could and use a pool net to reach the cat which came down the drooping limb to get closer to him. The cat actually stepped inside the net with his front paws, but Jesse was unable to get the back legs in to...

Of all the animals in this world, I believe it is the cat that has the greatest talent for getting itself into problematic and dangerous situations. They manage to get themselves trapped in a bewildering number of ways: locked up in closets and cabinets, in the attic, inside furniture, inside walls, on roofs, in holes of all kinds, and, of course, high in trees. I even found one inside a refrigerated soft drink vending machine. They also manage to get themselves outside their own territory into uncomfortable, if not dangerous, new places. Sometimes, they simply walk there, while, other times, they hitch a ride in cars, trailers or boats and show up in the most unexpected places. When we are surprised to find these mysterious cats where they do not normally belong, we always ask in wonder and amazement, "How did you get here?" The cat never answers. This theme repeated itself a few days ago in Livingston when Wendy discovered a small, lone Siamese kitten in the wooded area...

It gets to me every time. Every time I see a cat high in a tree looking down at me with that pitiful, wide-eyed look of desperation and crying repeatedly for help, it touches me. It touches that part of my heart which understands and feels that lonely, helpless suffering and that hopeless feeling of being trapped. There's no way out.  That is what I see at almost every rescue, and it is what I saw again when I saw Grey for the first time. Grey is a one-and-a-half year old brown tabby boy. He was probably more gray than brown as a young kitten, but he looks more brown to me now. He was probably chased up the tree in the next door neighbor's back yard by a new dog in the neighborhood, but we don't know for sure. Regardless, he is now almost 30 feet high in a very large tree in the overgrown back part of the yard bordered by a canal. The trunk of the tree is roughly four feet in diameter, and it rises thirty feet before it splits into three forks which rise upward in diffe...

I have had two rescues in the past three days, both of which were disappointing. They were both successful in the sense that they ended with the cat on the ground and doing well, but how they got there is another matter. First, was an unknown cat that was 50 feet high in a Pine tree in Denham Springs.  She appeared to be a young torbie, but I never got a good look at her to verify that. She was afraid of me and went out near the end of her limb. All my coaxing, food bribes, charm and patience had no effect on her, and she went out to the extreme end of the limb where the tiny twigs could not hold her. She fell 50 feet to the ground and ran off out of sight. She appeared to be fine, but it is a very unsatisfying feeling for me that I could not bring her down safely. The second rescue was for Bojangles, a large black-and-white, four-year-old boy who got stuck in a leaning Tallow tree in his own backyard. He had been there only eight hours or so when I arrived, but he was stress...

The weather forecast was not good. Tropical storm Barry was in the Gulf and expected to strengthen and come ashore sometime during the night. In advance of the storm, heavy rain showers had been forecast for my area in the late afternoon, but they did not appear to be materializing as predicted. Still, they could begin to form at any time, and the winds were picking up a bit. This would be a terrible time for a cat to get stuck in a tree, and I was glad that I did not have a cat rescue to do. Then the phone rang. The caller, Lauren, had just found my number when someone on Facebook recommended me to her in response to her post about her cat being stuck in a tree. Lauren had already suffered through the jokes, indifference, bad advice and platitudes that always rear their ugly heads in this situation, so she was relieved when I not only took the matter seriously but also said I would get her cat down. We just needed for the weather to hold off a little while. I feared that th...