Cat Rescue Guy

Cats are all the same, but every cat is different. Some cats, however, are more different than others, and Sly, the one-year-old Siamese in Pearl River, Louisiana, is among more more different. Sly had been stuck in a Live Oak tree in his own backyard for one night, and it was clear he was not happy about it. Nor were Ben and Tabitha who were very worried about Sly and explained to me that he is not just a cat to them. He is family.  Sly was described to me as friendly, but not the most intelligent of cats. I had a vague sense of what that means, but I didn't think it would have any effect on his rescue. Sly was in an isolated spot that would be difficult to reach, and that is a problem I often have with Live Oak trees and their far-spreading nature. Since I didn't have a way to climb all the way to him, I was counting on him to live up to his friendly reputation and come to me when I was standing at the base of his limb, but he didn't. When I first climb up to a cat in a t...

You would think that after all the hundreds of cases of cats in trees I have seen that I would be at least a little bit desensitized to the sound of their cry when they are calling out loudly for help, but when I arrived to rescue Coon in Picayune, Mississippi, I found his cry to be one of the most distressing and heart-breaking cries I have ever heard. This nine-month-old tabby was 55 feet high near the top of a tree at the edge of the woods, and he was all alone, helpless, and hopeless after spending two nights there. As you will hear in the video below, he cried loudly, emotionally, and persistently, and his cry drove straight into my heart and ignited a powerful, paternal instinct that would stop at nothing to help him. When his family first found him in the tree after his escape from the house, Coon was lower in the tree, clearly visible, and easily found by following his loud crying. After fruitlessly trying all they knew to get him down, they called me, and I agreed to go there ...

It was five years ago when I rescued Sassy the first time . She was an unknown kitty at that time, but Robin agreed to be responsible for her, and she did all the right things to find the owner. When no owner was found, Robin decided to keep her, and Sassy has lived happily with Robin and her daughter, Millie, ever since. Happily, that is, until she got stuck 25 feet high in a tree in her backyard near Hammond, Louisiana. No one was happy about that, especially when the temperature dropped down to freezing that night. Sassy's beautiful long hair may have helped insulate her from some of the cold, but it wasn't enough to make her comfortable or happy. Sassy was a sweet, cooperative kitty when I rescued her the first time, and I had no reason to believe she would be any different this second time. I was expecting an easy rescue until I saw the tree. This tree is a nasty mess cluttered with limbs and twigs pointing in every direction, and there were large detached limbs up high th...

It was one of my most dreaded rescue scenarios: a feral juvenile cat stuck in a huge tree. The tree was a large, spreading oak that is wider than it is tall, and it had large limbs extending forty feet from the trunk. That gave a scared cat plenty of room to roam, and there was no way I would be able to reach it at the end of those limbs. To be fair, we knew nothing about this cat, so maybe I would get lucky and be able to befriend it, but I wasn't feeling optimistic about that. We didn't know if this gray tabby was a male or female, but I will just assume it was a male and call him Grover. The tree was on Maria's property in Tickfaw, Louisiana, but she didn't know about this cat until her neighbors pointed it out and said that it had been stuck there for three nights. Being the animal lover that she is, Maria sought to find help for this kitty and eventually found me. I arrived to find the cat resting next to the trunk on a limb about halfway up the tree. When I began ...

I love rescuing sweet kitties like Coco. This nine-month-old, all-black kitty in Duson, Louisiana just innocently assumed that I was a good guy, and he fully trusted me from the start. He readily stepped on my lap, but he wanted more than that. He continued up my chest and wanted me to hold him there. After spending two cold nights in the tree, he was happy to have some warm company. That's the kind of reception I love to get, and I wish every cat would respond that way. While I can't say I enjoyed climbing this dense Cypress tree with all the tight squeezes between limbs, I certainly enjoyed rescuing Coco and would happily do so in whatever kind of tree he might climb. Thanks, Coco. That was fun.