Sad end to cat rescue...

Slightly off-topic, but for a long time I thought cat rescues were an urban myth.

In college, a kitten literally followed us home from the bar one night - ended up adopting it. I've never seen a cat that would climb at all, let alone for fun. She would run up the trunk, and be 30 feet up on a limb before you could blink.

First time it did it, really freaked me out. Turns out she was really good at getting down - would climb back down by hugging the trunk and popping down bit by bit. I've had cats my whole life, and she was the only one who would climb for fun. I figured getting down was something they could just do.

Are some cats just naturally good at climbing, and some aren't? Is it a breed thing? Pretty sure based on her coat pattern that she was at least part bengal.
 
I think it's more of an age thing. The young ones have no trouble going up, but down is a lot harder. Most of them come down on their own, especially older cats. Kittens just aren't the brightest crayons in the box. If they don't go up too high the first time, they usually figure out how to get down and aren't a problem after that. I think some of them just can't get past their fear.

I have seen one cat that just kept going up the same tree in the owner's yard. After several rescues, the owners decided they'd had enough. They left it up there overnight. It was meowing at the back door in the morning. Maybe it just liked being rescued.
 
The cat that I rescued did the same thing again a few weeks later. The second time the owner just left it there and it eventually got down somehow.
 
http://www2.catinatreerescue.com/home/index.cfm

Still there.

Cats don't pay, people do. Take your time and charge enough to make it worthwhile for yourself. Manage expectations. They're animals so they're prone to do something out of fear. Taking time, I take about an hour, usually helps to ensure a reasonable outcome.

I've built up a relationship with local cat groups so I get regular calls between them and Dan's site. Probably 50% of the rescues are initiated and paid for by people who don't own the cat. It may be their tree or near them. After a few days they get concerned and call. They are more than willing to pay.

I have one repeat client, 7 times I rescued their cat. I enjoy doing them and my wife loves coming out with me on them when she can.
 
After rescuing a bunch of cats I believe that cats that had a chance to run around outside as kittens learn to back down trees, cats that don't learn that trick young never learn as an adult. The original story posted is a reality check for many people who say "I've never found a dead cat in a tree, they'll come down on their own". Some of the cats I've rescued who were up for a long time, had given up and were weak and were spending most of the time sleeping. Cat rescue is not for everyone, ya gotta like the little buggers. I charge $50 to cover gas, insurance etc., not a money maker, break even is fine ;-)

The fire dept. and another arborist failed to get this cat, tree was a crazy leaner, messed up red oak. I got it finally after it had been up in very cold weather for a few days, it just wanted to sleep, didn't want to move. It was fine after it was back in the house for a couple hours with food and water.

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If you want to rescue cats sign up on the Dan Kraus site here, you will get calls no matter where you are in the country (as long as there are trees).
-AJ
 
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That's interesting, about them wanting to sleep. I believe that the vast majority of them will find their own way down, and I've never seen a cat skeleton in a tree, but I'll concede that there are cats who can't find their own path back to the ground. Still, I think giving them two days to figure it out isn't unreasonable. It's the ones that call wanting a cat rescued that has only been in the tree for half an hour that infuriate me.

Wanting to sleep in a dangerous situation is one of the symptoms of hypothermia. It wouldn't take terribly adverse weather for that to set in. You think that might explain it? Seems likely to me, anyway.
 
I was wondering how long it would take before someone said they have never seen a cat skeleton in a tree. Vultures are one explanation, but there are others as well. They also tend to fall often, either by slipping due to exhaustion or by rolling off the branch while asleep. Cat owners are often surprised to find their cat at the door waiting for them in the morning. It seems that many cats have the instinct for climbing up but are cursed to have no instinct for climbing down. They quite naturally try to go down head-first, and, of course, that doesn't work. It just doesn't occur to them to go down backward, so they are truly stuck. I don't know if the majority of cats knows how to come down on their own or not. I don't know of any legitimate data on that. But I do know that many cats do get stuck.

I have rescued cats that have been in the tree only a few hours. The rescue is not only for the cat, it's for the owner as well. The owners suffer more than the cats sometimes. I trust the owners to know their cats and know if they are stuck or not. Kittens are especially susceptible to hawks, so I don't waste time with them. And sometimes, cats are in unfamiliar territory and don't know how to get home if they should come down during the night. I had one cat that stowed away in a car without the driver's knowledge and jumped out when he stopped a couple of miles down the road. A dog chased it right up a tree, and the owner was planning to stay out all night to be there for her cat if it should come down. That's a good reason to rescue a cat after only a few hours in the tree.
 
Many of us who rescue cats have done so for cats that have been up as long as a week or more, those cats were never coming done except by falling after becoming unconscious. When cats are only up in a tree for an hour or two I ask the caller to wait a few more hours and call me back if the cat is still up there. But as Misfit points out, a lot of what happens in a cat rescue is managing the cat owners distress so sometimes acting fast (if you can do it) is best. It's very rewarding though to return a cat to its owner, the relationship is usually very tight, the upset is real.
-AJ
 
JeffGu said:
Wanting to sleep in a dangerous situation is one of the symptoms of hypothermia. It wouldn't take terribly adverse weather for that to set in. You think that might explain it? Seems likely to me, anyway.
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For a wild or domestic animal I think sleeping in a bad situation is a way to cope, conserve energy etc. The cat in the photo above was sleeping and shivering. Shivering is good, when they run out of fuel to shiver then they're done.
-AJ
 
I've only rescued three cats in my life, and I agree that a kitten in a tree is a little hard to ignore. You guys make very good points in favor of rescue efforts. Most of the cats in these small, farm communities are strays... they started life in the wild, and if they go up a tree they come back down without any help. I'm guessing that housecats probably don't learn the hard lessons early, like the half-feral ones.
 
Come to think about it cat rescue is very similar to tree work, a lot of it is managing the customer or in the case of married customers, mediating the massive communication/expectation gap between the two of them.
-AJ
 
Have only rescued two in nearly 40 years and both were pretty docile and didn't put up a fight. I grabbed and stuffed both pretty quick so I didn't give them much of a chance but I just know somebody's got a mean cat story. Or a jumper. That was my worst fear. Mom, Dad and the kids are watching this hero arborist Superguy going up the tree only to become a villain after the family pet sails out of a sixty foot pine and splatters on the driveway. It would be a long descent.
 
Dragonslayer said:
Have only rescued two in nearly 40 years and both were pretty docile and didn't put up a fight. I grabbed and stuffed both pretty quick so I didn't give them much of a chance but I just know somebody's got a mean cat story. Or a jumper. That was my worst fear. Mom, Dad and the kids are watching this hero arborist Superguy going up the tree only to become a villain after the family pet sails out of a sixty foot pine and splatters on the driveway. It would be a long descent.
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Dude. They often jump. They're also really good at not dying.

The young and the squeamish should definitely not watch in high-risk rescues.
 
SomethingWitty said:
Dude. They often jump. They're also really good at not dying.

The young and the squeamish should definitely not watch in high-risk rescues.
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I've only had one jumper, was in the woods, big fall, survived the soft landing. If there is enough clearance I'll ask the onlookers to hold a blanket to catch the cat if it jumps. If the cat is ornery I warn the people on the ground there's going to be some noise, I do a hard grab if the cat's going to be a fighter.

Just to mess up your heads, I've rescued a pet squirrel, the owners were so worried, they raised it from a pinkie after it fell out of a tree during a takedown. The squirrel was about a year old and had never been in a tree before. I tried to explain that the squirrel had achieved its destiny and has never been happier sitting in the top of a tree. This was a night rescue, well lit with a floodlight, first throw my bag hung (Noway maple), trying to get it out I shook the top of the tree pretty good, the squirrel ran right down to the ground ;-) Easiest rescue ever. Later we did photos (the family insisted) the squirrel got tired of being held and bit me REALLY hard on my index finger, I mean gnawed, gave me a good bleeder. It all worked out fine.

Edit: I did have another jumper but not high enough to be significant, a young girl in the family did an excellent job tracking the cat in the woods behind the house where it ran after hitting the ground. So far in my experience some cats get really unnerved if the rope is too near them as you're climbing up, was true in both of the jumpers I had.
-AJ
 
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