Stuck in the Tree

That silly kitten.

She likes to climb trees apparently. The first few times she only climbed a few feet and was able to jump down easily.

But the other morning for some unknown reason she decided to keep climbing and ended up on a  high branch. It seemed the more I called her the higher she climbed.

So I left her.

Guv'nor was home that day so he decided to have a go. She only climbed higher. His comment later was, "she's going to die." Either she would cling on and starve to death, or she would pass out from hunger and thirst and fall to her death. Either way - dead.

So we left her. We live too far out to call the fire department. Our local volunteer department would probably laugh.

We did search online for "how to get a cat out of a tree" and came up with a few ideas. One was to put a ladder against the tree, not for us to climb up, but to give the cat a way to get down. So Guv'nor put a ladder against the tree.

She slept outside for the first time that night. If she was old enough to climb too high, she was old enough to sleep outside. It was tough love.

The next morning, she was still crying and meowing from the high branch. I finally noticed that because she was so high up, I had to stand away from the tree to see her. And when I called, she followed my voice and climbed farther out.

So I decided to stand at the tree trunk and call her. She gradually inched her way closer to the middle of the tree. And then down a few branches. She finally got a few feet away from the ladder. By this time she was pretty scared and nervous. So any little noise would send her back up the tree.

One of the online tips was to set food out near the base of the tree, that she could smell. So I got a small can of smelly cat food and set it by the ladder. I also taped a noisy cat toy on the end of a cattle prod and put a little food on the end by the toy.

I climbed just a few steps up the ladder so I could dangle the toy and food close enough to get her attention. She eventually got close enough to lick a little of the food. But the ladder was too slippery for her to get a grip. And set at too sharp an angle.

After much coaxing, she finally came down a couple steps, just low enough that when I stood on the lower steps I could reach her.

She ate and drank for a solid five minutes when she got down.

She didn't learn her lesson from this because just a few days later, she was stuck on top of the carport. This time I was able to set the ladder on the lower end and reach high enough to get her down.

I learned that cats can easily climb because their claws are curved in a way to make it easy for upward motion. But coming down the curve is going the wrong way and the claws won't grip.