Cat Rescue Guy

Charlene was immensely relieved and proud. After spending the past two years trying in vain to trap a feral cat who had already had two litters of kittens and was now pregnant with a third, and after spending all that time trying to earn the cat's trust enough to let her pet her while she ate, Charlene finally had a chance to grab the cat by the scruff and stuff her inside a carrier for a trip to the veterinarian. Hooray! Success at last! She had already trapped, spayed, neutered, and returned all the other cats in the colony in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, but this one mama cat was the last holdout because she was far too wary to go into a trap or get too close to Charlene. But Charlene had her now, so off to the clinic they went. Charlene is one of several saintly people I have met over the past several years who voluntarily manage multiple colonies of feral cats in various locations. They trap the cats to have them all spayed, neutered, and vaccinated, return them to their territory,...

It appears that the summer rescue slump is about over since I have had several calls lately. Fortunately, some of those calls resolved on their own, but I do have a few rescues to report, starting with Mimi in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Mimi is a cute, gray tabby youngster who was stuck in a tree in his own yard for one night. He was unhappy being there and panting in the heat, but he was happy to see me climbing up to him. I love easy, receptive kitties like this, and all I had to do was hold the carrier up to him and wait for him to figure out what to do with it. He tried getting on top of the carrier at first, but that didn't seem right. Once he stepped inside, it all became clear to him as I closed the door and took him back down to the ground. He and his family are very happy to be safe inside at home again. I forgot to turn on my camera for the critical part of the rescue, so I have very few pictures to show. The next rescue was just as easy but more complicated and urgent becau...

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...