Pet Notes: Cat-astrophe 2014

Friends of ours are out of the country right now, and they've asked my mother-in-law to housesit/catsit their place while they are away.  My mother-in-law is great for this kind of thing.  You can't find a more responsible person than Betty.  She'll follow directions to the letter and she'll go above and beyond what people normally ask of her.  The directions didn't say anything about how to handle it if the cat decides to get itself stuck in a tree.

A couple of days ago, Betty let the cat out of the house as she's been instructed to do.  It didn't take long for her to notice the mewling coming from the large tree in the corner of the yard.  When she looked up, sure enough, Nutter Butter was perched about 50 feet up in the tree.  Betty and Shea called the cat for about an hour, trying to coax the animal from the tree, but to no avail.  The little thing wasn't taking the bait.

Betty and Shea pulled out the cat food, the treats, and everything they could think of to try and coax the poor thing down.  The family called around to the fire department (they don't do that kind of thing anymore), tree trimmers, and other animal rescue places, but they were greeted with a resounding, "We don't work on Sundays."  So, the cat was forced to spend what was probably a long, cold night perched up in the tree.  Tracy and I were unavailable, as were some of our other friends who Betty felt comfortable calling for help.  Nutter Butter couldn't have been pleased about this development.

We told Betty to leave the food out and maybe the cat would come down once it was hungry enough.  Apparently the cat had eaten a big dinner, for it didn't come down by this morning.  Betty called around to Tracy and I this morning for advice.  The animal rescue places had not returned her calls yet today.

Betty was meant to watch Shea while I finished my grading for the term and submitted grades.  As I had woken up early in the morning, I had completed grading one of my classes and decided to drive Shea over to Betty.

Before I left, knowing I wasn't going to leave the house without getting the cat down, I called my friend Pat who is an experienced tree trimmer for any advice in case he had run into a similar situation.  I was told to bring gloves, a towel, and a backpack.  If I could get close to the cat, I was to wrap it in a towel, put it in the backpack, and then descend the tree.  I was geared up and ready to go when I arrived at our friends' house.

I was lucky that our friends kept an extension ladder against the back of the house because the cat was UP THERE!  The poor little thing was breaking all of our hearts with her little mewling cries.  I braced the ladder up against the tree and began my ascent.

The intrepid tree-climber after his prey!

I sat on that ladder for about 30-40 minutes shaking a bag of cat treats while Nutter Butter slowly made his way down from branch to branch.  The poor thing trembled her way down from branch to branch, sometimes retreating back up the tree in pursuit of a better way to get down to me.  She mewled the whole time, exhausted, hungry, and thirsty, I'm sure.  After a couple of missteps and a couple of near disastrous moves, she finally came within arms reach.

I didn't want to snatch her up right away, so I fed her some of the cat treats from out of my hand.  She gobbled up the two handfuls I held out for her and was licking my hand free of the crumbs when I decided the moment was right.  Bracing myself against the tree, I reached over with my other hand (this is a big deal as I'm not a huge fan of heights and I'm now not holding on) and grabbed her by the neck.  Once, I had her securely in my grip, I held on with my other hand and went about heaving her up off her perch.

The cat did not want to come off that branch.  She dug her little claws in and didn't want to let go.  I was afraid that she would take a swing at me once I got her hands free, but once I pried her off the branch and had her resting against my side, she simply curled up there.  She didn't move or fight me at all once she felt she was secure against my side.  I need not have worried about the gloves and the backpack, for Nutter Butter seemed to understand what I was after.

I descended the ladder and got onto hard ground.  Nutter Butter squirmed in my grip a bit, wanting to get down on to the grass, but I wasn't about to let this cat loose in the yard again.  My mother-in-law had been too distraught about the poor cat's safety over the last night, so we marched back into the house as a triumphant team.

Shea bounced around me yelling, "Good job, Nutter Butter.  Good kitty!"

One exhausted kitty!

I don't know if house arrest is something that's ever been applied to a cat, but I have a feeling it is now.  To my traveling friends, Nutter Butter is safe, but she's not getting out again until you guys get home if Betty has anything to say about it.  Although, with the way she was acting, I don't think she'll be looking for a way out any time soon.

After my grandiose adventure, it was time to head back to grading.  One more stack of in-class essays and I was done for the term!  I think the adrenaline was a good thing though.  I've never been so alert as I read handwritten essays written by students!