Cat Rescue Guy

It has been rather quiet here lately in what I assume is the beginning of the Summer Season Slowdown, but there happened to be two local kitties, Simba and Milky, who boldly defied the seasonal norms and got stuck in a tree anyway. Simba, a sweet orange tabby in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, spent one night about 30 feet high in a narrow Sweetgum tree in his backyard. Even though he is normally timid with strangers, he appeared to overcome that quite easily with me. He came to me and seemed very comfortable with my petting him, but he didn't see how I could be of any use to him. He repeatedly came to me to say hello, and then he would turn around and go back out a short distance on his limb. I could not convince him to step on my lap, so I decided to just grab him by the scruff and bag him. I always aim to be as gentle as possible, but I mishandled the bagging, and had to be less gentle than usual to ensure that I secured him inside the bag. Once he was secured, I reassured him there on ...

Milo is a seven-month-old kitty in Walker, Louisiana who always runs away from strangers, and that is exactly what I expected from him when I started climbing up to him in the tall Pine tree in his next-door neighbor's yard where he had already spent one night. Milo didn't wait for me to get close. He started climbing higher as soon as it was clear that I was headed in his direction. I felt lucky when I saw him go out on a short limb because he would be trapped there once I climbed up level with him. However, when I got close enough to see that his limb was very dead, I became worried that it could break at any moment without warning, and that is where the video (below) begins. I spent several minutes there with Milo trying to calm him down and prove my friendly intentions, and while he did calm down and come to accept me somewhat, I could not get him to come any closer to me. I wanted him closer, not only so that I could reach him, but also to reduce the stress on the limb. Th...

The last few rescues I did were all tough, and they put me in a temporary low point where I questioned why I was doing this. This happens every now and then, and I don't stay in that low point very long. All I need to do is see the joy and relief in the faces of the cat owners when I give their cat safely back to them, and it also helps to see the post-rescue pictures of the cat at home in its comfortable, soft bed. This time, however, in case that was not enough, the next day, I was presented with a very strong reason why rescuing a cat in a tree is worth the great trouble that it sometimes can be. It was nearing sunset time when Jackie called me to see if I could rescue her cat, Lucki, who was stuck in a tree in her backyard in Abita Springs, Louisiana. Often, people will type a message to me to ask for a rescue, but it is so much better when they call, not only because the exchange of information goes much faster, but also because I can gather much more information about the sit...

Either I am losing my touch or I just happened to have three tough kitties in a row to rescue on consecutive days, or maybe it's both, but regardless, it has been a week where I find myself asking, "Why am I doing this?" Of course, I know the answer, but long, difficult rescues can cause me to forget temporarily and question my ability, and these three kitties caused me to do exactly that. First was Baby Belle, a three-year-old kitty in Central, Louisiana who is normally just as sweet as her name sounds, but she took great offense at my audacious appearance in her Cypress tree which she had clearly claimed as her own by spending one night there. When I climbed the tree and was close enough to reach out to her, she let me know how outraged she was by growling, hissing, spitting and swatting at my hand. Of course, I backed off, but, over the next hour, I had no luck in reassuring her in any way or calming her demeanor in the slightest. All I got was more growling, hissing, ...

Cinnamon was one tough cookie. He wasn't spicy, but he was calmly defiant like a statue that could not be budged. He was 60 feet high and far out at the end of a long, arching branch of a very large oak tree where I could not go. I was about 10 feet from him, and we had a long, friendly standoff while I waited for him to come to me and he waited for me to leave. I'm a very patient rescuer because cats often need a long time to see that I am not a threat. I am so patient that the cat owners sometimes get bored and tired and go inside to wait for me to finish. I was patient with Cinnamon too, but Cinnamon was more patient than I was. In the standoff and patience game, Cinnamon won. Cinnamon is a two-year-old orange tabby boy who was stuck in a tree in Leonville, Louisiana for five nights. Silly me. I thought his rescue would be easy. He was originally stuck on a short, dead stub about 30 feet high in a tree in a long line of fence-line trees between a corn field and a long, hard-...