The Great Cat Rescue.....

So yesterday, at noon, I went on an errand during lunch time. When I came back, I parked my truck under the lone tree in our parking lot. I have quit parking under this tree because since the ice storm, it has several large dead limbs hanging by a thread, just waiting for me to park under them, so they can crash down. Paranoid, perhaps, but I think not. Need I remind readers of two flat tires, two separate window incidents and yada, yada. But, no, I had to park under that tree at that particular time. Yep.

So I parked the truck and had 15 minutes left to read. It's hot,so I rolled both windows down. Munching on lunch and reading, relaxing, it took a few minutes to sink in that I was hearing a very faint meowing sound. I tried to ignore it, but I have some kind of mechanism that causes me to get sucked into these situations almost immediately. Before I even knew it, I was outside looking around for the source of the meow. The whole time, my mind is saying, you looked, you didn't find, now go inside to work! Hurry! I kept looking. Finally I looked up....and up. There high in the tree was a cat, a kitten really. Just at that age where kittens start finding all kinds of things to get into.

I wore myself out making periodic trips out, trying to coax it down. I called it, I sweet talked it, I opened a can of food and tried to lure it down. I tried to suck my co-workers into the operation. Finally I told myself, it would surely come down in the night, when it wouldn't be so scary to look down. Feeling sick at heart I left for the evening.

When I pulled into the parking lot this morning, and saw two of my co-workers standing under the tree, looking up, I groaned and thought about just driving away. Yes the kitten was still there. Very vocal and more active. We called, we coaxed, we looked like idiots. We moved the Church van under the tree and placed smelly cat food on top of it. We thought, and plotted. We decided an hour and then we would call animal control to see if they had suggestions. V. my co-worker remembered some really, really long poles used for what we don't know, and went and fetched them. I got a Styrofoam bowl and we thumb tacked it to the end of the pole. We put a little dab of cat food in it and managed to get quite a bit on ourselves as I tried to weave the pole up towards the cat. The idea was to try and lure it with the smell of yummy food to come down a limb at a time. It almost worked, but 'she' as we began calling her, chickened out. When we would walk away to think out a new strategy she would cry and cry. Finally I called the police station to try and get animal control. I left a message. They were suppose to come. They never showed up. V. called again and got the animal control guy. He didn't sound very motivated or helpful, but he would 'swing by after he unloaded some stuff'. Several more trips out to sweet talk the kitty.

Somewhere in there I had formed a very unhappy plan that if we did get the kitten down, I would take it home, put it in a large cage and V. would perhaps work on her husband all weekend so he would let her have the cat. Now the chances of that happening were very slim, and I was a bit sick about having another cat, but what to do???

When I came back from another unsuccessful attempt, V. had had a stroke of genius and called the humane society to see if anyone had lost a kitten. I would have never thought of that, because in the country people rarely 'lose' a cat around here, but they sure do 'dump' them. Amazingly someone HAD lost a kitten in that vicinity! A miracle! V. called the number, and got a machine. She left a message. About ten minutes later the guy called back. Yes, they had lost a kitten! She was cream and white (match), her name was Priscilla. She had been lost the right amount of time. They lived just behind where we were located. In about 10 minutes, the guy shows up. I wasn't sure he was animal control or the owner, so I asked him if he was AC. He said no... but he was a deputy sheriff and a volunteer firefighter--guess he thought he had to give credentials! Ha.... So I took him out to the tree. For a minute I was afraid it wasn't a match. His face scrunched up, then he said PRISCILLA, what are you doing, honey?? I'm not kidding when I say this kitten literally started wailing and crying at the top of her lungs! There was absolutely no doubt these two knew each other. So the guy tries to climb the tree--it was not a pretty sight. I finally said, let me go and get a ladder so you can get up to the first branches. So I dash off to the office, go running in, yelling for V... she isn't there, I dash down the hall towards the custodian's room----around a corner and nearly collide face first into the ladder that V. was rushing to bring out to us! So I take it out to him and Priscilla is determinedly working her way down the tree to him! I stepped behind the van out of sight and he soon could reach her and got her down. She was so happy to see him. She is probably around 4 months old or so. She had to be one tired, thirsty and hungry little kitty, but her purr button was working just fine. Evidently Priscilla has a knack for getting into 'situations'. Last week she somehow got into a trash can and the lid shut on her--however her kitty brother was trying to rescue her and pull her out by her tail! ;-)

Often cats appear aloof, but never doubt they have a real and strong attachment to their people! But then us cat lover's don't have to be told that, do we?

As for the animal catcher? He never showed up, but who needs 'em anyway.