"Peluchin and "Mango"

This is about two rescues that occurred over the Memorial Day weekend. On that Friday, Cooper from Albertville Animal Control contacted me about a kitty that had been stuck way up a pine tree for three days.  She enlisted a utility crew nearby to try a rescue but it was too high for their truck,  I am recovering from a back injury and am limited in climbing, so I recruited a friend, Katherine H, who is skilled in vertical caving to do the climbing. We arrived on Saturday around noon, and found "Peluchin" about 50 ft up the tree. The kitty actually lived several homes away and the home owners were very cooperative in allowing us to attempt a rescue. While we were setting the rope, the kitty spooked and went way out on the limb. I aborted the rescue as Katherine, while skilled in vertical caving, has not done tree climbing before and I would not let her attempt such a difficult rescue. I also knew that MeowMax, my expert tree climbing friend, would be available on Monday.  I left a thowline in the tree and we left for home.  On Monday, Max and I arrived around 11;00 am but could not find the kitty in the tree. The owners and some neighbors started a search, and the kitty was found hiding near her home. Some heavy rain the previous night must have pushed the kitty out of the tree. "Peluchin" seemed ok after her ordeal, so all was ended well.

Late Sunday afternoon, I received a text from Holly who only lived 15 minutes from me. She had an unknown orange kitty stuck in a tree next to her driveway. The kitty was only 20 ft up and they had a ladder that nearly reached the kitty. This rescue was looked simple enough that I felt that  I could handle it despite my back injury. I packed up and was soon at the tree. I put a rope above the kitty, climbed the ladder, grabbed the sweet orange boy and came back down. On the ground, we scanned for a microchip and struck gold - a number appeared on the scanner. I called Home Again, and reported the missing kitty.  Holly and her husband were cat people, and already had two kitties - they agreed to keep the kitty until the owner contacted them.  The owners contacted them on Wednesday and picked up the kitty, whose name is "Mango". It turns out the neighbors lived just down the hill and they knew each other!  Holly said that a feral kitty had semi-adopted them a few years back but after a while transferred its adoption to these very same neighbors, so they were already linked via this previous kitty.  Mango was an elder kitty that rarely ventured out of the yard and they have no clue as to what chased him so far away and up a tree.