'PipeR' - The Kitty Who 'Pined' to Be Rescued

Details

It was about 8:30 am, and I was pulling into work when the Kat Fone yowled. It was Amanda -- she had received my contact information from facebook friends, and she had a kitty stuck in a pine tree -- could I help? I had an afternoon meeting that I needed attend, rain was coming that night, and I was tied up all the next morning. My next opportunity would not be until the following afternoon, so I decided to chance doing the rescue immediately, hoping that that I could get back in time for the meeting. I entered work, took care of a couple things, then drove back home and packed up the truck. I agreed to meet Amanda at her house at 10:30 am.

When I entered the neighborhood I felt that it looked familiar -- it was, the house where I rescued Blackjack twice was just one street over. He was a black kitty that liked to climb pine trees, and Piper is a black kitty that was stuck in a pine tree -- I think it is a conspiracy among the kitties of that neighborhood to see how often they can get me to drive over! Amanda arrived home from work shortly after I pulled up at the house, and then she led me to Piper's tree. Piper was stuck about 35 feet up a pine tree, but there were plenty of nice limbs to put a climbing line on. Unfortunately, there were several small cedars and other scrub trees around the base, and the tree was right next to the back fence line. All of this greatly limited the positions from which to shoot the throw bag, and I finally settled for a non-optimal limb that was little above Piper, but out from the trunk. I knew this would cause me some trouble in reaching Piper once I got up there, but I did not have any other options.

Once my climbing line was installed, I started up. After about 10 feet, I had Amanda pass up my handsaw so that I cut through the thicket of cedar limbs blocking my ascent. I finally broke through the low canopy and neared Piper's position. She was constantly meowing, but did not look frightened. My limb was on a large stem that branched from the main stem -- Piper's branch was on the main stem but near the place where my stem and the main stem joined. When I reached Piper's height, I put a lanyard around my stem to draw myself closer to it, but it was still quite a reach for me to grab Piper. I pulled some cat treats out, and drew Piper a little closer to me with the treats. By hugging my stem, and reaching as far as I could, I barely reached Piper's scruff but it was enough to grab her. I drew to me, and then put the Kat Bag over her. Piper yowled a bit, but she was safe in the bag. A quick descent, and I handled Piper off to Amanda. Amanda placed Piper in a screened porch, but she quickly escaped from there and went romping around the yard. Piper was very sweet, and allow me to scratch her ears. When I was packing up, she also explored my truck interior. Both Piper and Amanda were happy that Piper was back on the ground! There are a couple of post rescue pictures to the right, but they are poor quality as Piper would not stand still for very long!

The rescue was easy enough that I made my meeting with an hour to spare.