Cat Rescue Guy

I almost always feel very good after a rescue, but this one was an exception. The cat was unknown, and he was stuck in a tree in a nice, large trailer park. I had only vague information about how long he had been there, but my best guess is that it was at least five days. He cried from time to time, but he was mostly quiet, so it was hard to judge his level of tameness. He made no sound at all when I arrived, and I had a hard time finding him. He was about 35 feet high near the top of a dense Cypress tree, and I knew right away that I would not be bringing a carrier into the tree with me. It would be hard enough to weave my body between all the many limbs, so I didn't want to make it harder by dragging a bulky carrier along with me too. Whether this kitty is tame or not, I will have to get him in a bag to bring him down. Climbing up to him was a bit slow, but once I was within sight, he looked down at me and cried. Even though his cry sounded a bit distressed, I took this as an enc...

Whenever I go to rescue a cat a second time, I always wonder how he will react to me based on his experience with his first rescue. Did he perceive his first rescue as frightening, traumatic, pleasant, or just neutral? Even if the first rescue was very gentle and pleasant from my point of view, did he experience it differently? Does he even remember the first rescue? When I approach him this second time, will he regard me as predator or rescuer? Those are some of the concerns passing through my mind as I went, for the second time, to rescue Ron, the cool, orange tabby boy in Mandeville, Louisiana. I went over my notes from Ron's first rescue to remind me how that rescue developed and how he reacted. I remember feeling disappointed that Ron showed no interest in stepping on my lap even though he was a frequent lap-sitter with his family. I remember reluctantly dropping the cat bag around him from above and lifting him to collect the bag beneath him. I did it as gently as possible, ...

Summer is the slow season for cat-in-tree rescues here, and August is the slowest month of them all. Of all the rescues I have done, only 4% occurred during August, and that is why I have been so quiet here lately. There are always a few kitties who buck the trend and find a way to get stuck in a tree during August, and I am always happy to help them down out of the heat. This time, it was Coco, a sweet five-month-old tabby girl who escaped out of her house near Watson, Louisiana where she immediately encountered a dog who scared her up a tree by her front porch. She settled on one of the lowest large limbs where she was safe from danger, but she was also clueless about how to get back down. Kim tried to coax her down, but Coco was not going to attempt such a scary feat. Kim wasted no time looking for help and called me only four hours after Coco first climbed the tree, and I was there an hour later. Coco appeared very relaxed as she rested up there on the limb only twenty feet high, a...

Maybelle kept changing her mind. This one-year-old kitty welcomed me in the tree and let me pet her, but then she decided she didn't trust me and moved a safe distance away. After I moved over some obstacles in the tree, sat down on her limb, and opened a can of food for her, she decided to come see me and let me pet her again. You would think that after being stuck in this huge Oak tree for three nights that she would be hungry enough to eat just about anything, but she turned her nose up at the scent of the food I offered her and turned herself around and walked away again. At this point, I thought my odds of getting her to come back to me again were pretty slim, so I stood up and moved out to her. She was resting on the limb with her back to me, but I let her know I was there and reached down to pet her. She was comfortable with that and even seemed to enjoy it, but then again, she decided she better start putting some more distance between us. She stood up and started walking a...

Susan and Robert already had their hands full with two litters of kittens that someone dropped off at their rural home in Walker, Louisiana, and they didn't need the added trouble of helping a different unknown cat stuck in a tree at the edge of their property. These are kind, responsible people, and they can't ignore the needy, homeless kittens or the cat stuck in a tree, so they began working to find some spay/neuter resources and homes for the kittens while also trying to help the cat in the tree find a way down. All their efforts to help the cat in the tree failed, but when they could not see her in the tree one morning, they thought she had come down on her own during the night as often happens. Unfortunately, they found her later that day higher in the tree, so this problem was still not resolved. They reached out to their veterinarian who referred them to me, and I went out there that same afternoon. This solid gray cat had been stuck in the tree for four nights, and tha...