[Vision2020] Caturday (December 11, 2010)

[Tom Hansen]

Courtesy of the Ventura County Star (Thousand Oaks, California) at:

http://www.vcstar.com/news/2010/dec/08/tree-service-extends-to-rescuing-a-cat/?partner=yahoo_feeds

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Tree service worker rescues cat in Oak Park
By Staff

As a crowd of people looked skyward, a gray cat was lassoed with a rope
around its neck Wednesday afternoon and brought safely back to the ground,
ending a 7 1/2-hour saga.

The story began about 9 a.m. Wednesday at the Oak Park North apartment
complex in Oak Park when the cat’s owner noticed it high up in a tree,
said Denis Brannagan, a resident.

“It was clear the cat wasn’t going to be able to come down alone,”
Brannagan said. So the Fire Department was called, he said.

But the Fire Department said it would be unable to get the cat, Brannagan
said, since it was not only very high up but in a hard-to-get-to place.

Then someone contacted a tree service company and one of their workers
volunteered to make the long and dangerous climb into the tree.

“It took the guy about 20 minutes to climb up there,” Brannagan said. The
only problem was when he got up there he realized he would need a pole and
a rope if there was any chance of bringing the cat safely back down.

So the man made the climb down, grabbing a pole and some rope.

Then it he climbed back up, perching himself on a strong branch and
extending the pole and rope out to the thin branch where the cat sat.

Finally, the man managed to lasso the cat. The only problem was the rope
was around the cat’s neck, Brannagan said.

“The people on the ground were worried the cat was going to get strangled.”

But the man managed to get the cat safely off its precarious perch and
into a bag.

The cat was handed over to its owner about 4:30 p.m., Brannagan said, more
than seven hours after its rescue had started.

“The guy was amazing,” said Brannagan of the rescue. “Everyone applauded.”

Brannagan did not know the man’s name.

Within 15 minutes of being rescued, the cat was home eating and drinking
“as if nothing had happened,” he said.

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Seeya round town, Moscow.

Tom Hansen
Moscow, Idaho

"I had been told that the training procedure with cats is difficult.  It's
not.  Mine had me trained in two days."

- Bill Dana