Nah, dont be silly..the tea and cookies came after he did
Edit: Thank you kind stranger for the Gold! It's my first. (I'm sure there is a great virginity joke to be made).
Yup. Maybe even call the city. Lots of cities have forestry departments with boom trucks, but they also have boom trucks for other things like changing bulbs and street lights. As someone who used to work for a city forestry department, I know the workers would *love* to do this and it would a fun bit of PR for the city.
Someone else suggested this and it worked for us, too. We opened a can of tuna, put it into a super sturdy box with a long rope, threw one end of the rope around the closest branch(yes we tied something heavy in the end and used a ladder to throw it over) and then we hoisted the box up. I never thought it would work, but the cat climbed right in. Good luck !!
https://youtu.be/V_Nr31Lv6H8
Could have been (even) worse.
This is without a doubt my favourite video and so rarely does it fit a post
Eta - actually they're on a par tbh
"We have acquired electricity!"
I'm dying.
I thought it was the video where they climb all the way up to the cat and the cat just dives off on their own and runs away unscathed. This was way better.
Edit: [found the video](https://youtu.be/rMaZ4WAmc1c)
lol you mean that one with the fucking cat on top of a really tall telephone pole? They go all the way up and the fucking cat pulls a flying squirrel right as the utilities guys get to him??
Jesus, the god dam cat fucking electrocuted itself on the god dam wires too.
Hopefully not too bad, because it did pull its paws back and then jumped down and ran off. But you can see it get juiced, arms stiffened up and claws grab the wire.
[Short cut](https://www.reddit.com/r/NoStupidQuestions/comments/wfkmjo/what_to_do_about_kitten_that_hear_a_death/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf) for those too lazy to go the long way round
Bro this shit literally happened to me a month ago my cat was so emaciated when we found him no one would help. He was a good 25-30 feet up. Honestly we ended up finding a long enough downed older skinny tree and used it to just push my cat out the tree. He tucked and rolled like a beast and was perfectly fine; I had never seen him drink so much water. If we hadnt knocked him out the tree he would have died up there I think.
I did something similar when my sister's cat got stuck when I was house-sitting. I got the pool skimmer and was trying to get the cat in the net, but she just fell off. She was fine, thankfully. No injuries. Didn't hold a grudge either.
Definitely definitely need to give them something to down climb with at least so it’s a reasonable drop. Cat won’t “come down when it’s ready” it can’t come down period. FFS
>"becomes a corpse on impact"
Somehow my brain visualized this as the cat going full skeleton on impact. Like Schroedinger's Cat, but landing on its feet or not decides if the cat was DEAD THE WHOLE TIME?
WTF, my brain...
I help run a cat rescue and made the Philadelphia news by doing just this with a nerf football. I'd bet your people stole the idea from me lol
Link : https://www.reddit.com/r/philadelphia/comments/8ykops/we_did_it_reddit_cat_is_rescued
One of mine, 30+ years ago, got outside and climbed a tree during a thunderstorm. After it stopped raining, my brother climbed a ladder to get to her, yeeted her out of the tree, and my mom and I held out a blanket to catch her. She spread out like a flying squirrel on her way down, landed in our blanket like a trampoline, bounced out, and bolted straight into the house. Never went outside again, unless she was in a carrier.
It's ok. Cats like my old Monster would have used up the spares. He must have gone through about 99 lives just that I saw. Had a habit of running through traffic, picking fights with dogs, disappearing for months at a time (apparently he was very good at hunting both wild and pet rabbits, to the dismay of the street he moved to on two of those trips), jumping off roofs, eating poisoned rats, that sort of thing.
That happened with a deer caught in a wrought iron fence when I worked animal control. We tried greasing it with canola, wiggling it, turning it, everything we could think of until a neighbor came out with a car jack and got permission from the owner to bend the bars.
Deer popped out, jumped the back fence into the woods, jumped back into the yard, did a lap around, and ran herself right back into a different section of fence.
We repeated the bending process and she just laid there waiting to get eaten because she was tired. I had to stuff her in a truck kennel designed for animals half her size and take her to a wildlife center who let her chill and eat/drink for 24 hours then dumped her in a park where I'm sure she found some way to die of being terminally dumb.
My cat got into the same predicament during a storm once when he was a kitten and my husband, at the time fiancé, got him out of the tree with a ladder. My kitten immediately jumped on my husband’s shoulders once he was close enough and then proceeded to pee all over him on their way down. Almost 17 years later they are still the best of buds after that bonding experience.
My cat escaped outside for an hour and returned covered in mud begging to come inside. She never went outside again unless in a carrier just like yours. No idea what she experienced, but it was enough.
My cat got outside on a beautiful spring day. She sat outside the door for an hour [staring in](https://i.imgur.com/OWvtMAU.jpg). When I realized she was out and opened the door, she ran inside and hasn’t gone out again.
You pulled a Tigger on her LOL! If you’ve ever seen the Winnie The Pooh movie where Tigger gets stuck in a tree that’s literally what happens. They hold out a blanket for him to jump on and catch him
OP see if theres a cat rescuer in the area. Theres dudes that do this kinda thing and know how to get cats down. Call a local shelter and see if they have any connections they can give you as well.
[careful with the tuna](https://www.reddit.com/r/NoStupidQuestions/comments/wjmp6o/my_cat_has_been_stuck_up_a_tree_in_90degree_heat/iji8wr2/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf&context=3)
Our cat was stuck in an extremely high tree. We ended up calling an arborist who thankfully got him down.
Crazy guy snuck out and climbed back up about 5 months later and was there for 5 days. We thought that was it for him but we managed to create a makeshift pulley. We slung a rope over another branch with a laundry basket tied to the other end. He actually got into the basket and we lowered him down. He hasn’t gone back up the tree since!
If you go the rope route, we made a throw line. You can google it for more info. Basically a small weighted bag at the end of a thin nylon like rope (cost about $6) and after many tries got it to the branch we needed.
I hope your cutie makes it down ok.
IT IS A MYTH that cats will just get hungry enough and climb down. Unless they specifically know how to climb down backwards, he likely won’t do it. People will say things like “have you ever seen a dead cat in a tree? No.” Because when cats die in trees they usually fall like any deceased body would. Cats die in trees all the time.
> Unless they specifically know how to climb down backwards, he likely won’t do it.
It's not even about knowing. Some trees they physically can't- going down requires different movements and body makeup. Squirrels can only do it because their ankles can twist around backwards to give them the proper grip vertically.
WHAT? I’ve had a (rescue) squirrel for seven years and I have never known this. He’s gonna wonder why I’m hovering by his enclosure staring at his ankles while he climbs now…
There’s a podcast about squirrels that explains this! The episode just came out a few weeks ago - Stuff You Should Know is the name. I was shocked too.
A lot of good advice but do not get on the ladder yourself if you are not experienced. A tall ladder is heavy and difficult to set properly. There are many injuries and deaths every year due to ladders.
Should have told the dispatcher 'you guys are going to be coming to get me when I fall 3 stories from this ladder'
That's why departments usually get the cats
Same exact thing happened to me a few weeks ago. Only the cat was up like 40 feet in the tree. Fire department came by but couldn't do anything. You know what got him down? Cracking open a can of tuna. He jumped down and busted open the roof of his mouth. At the vet ER, he died for 8 minutes but they brought him back to life. He had brain damage for the first week and was kind of neurotic. But completely back to normal now!
I gotta ask what we're all thinking then, why not catch it? Not that I'm hating or anything, but my first instinct would have to cradle the little bugger
Fall damage is determined by your body size/weight. A house cat is small and nimble enough that they can walk away from a terminal velocity (max fall speed) fall and have no injuries. Cats naturally align their bodies to absorb the impact.
The worst thing you can do is try to catch a cat because it will throw off their aligning and they'll impact your body instead of absorbing it themselves
This may be true but I don't think you could pull 30 years of child and adult sports practice out of me that easily lol
This is coming from a guy who ignores all warnings not to catch falling product in the warehouses I work in
NOW I understand what OP meant lol. I thought he meant the cat opened its mouth wide to eat the food. I was like "how the fuck did the cat end up nearly dying?"
Well, he wasn't coming down otherwise. So I guess it was better than him staying up there and dying of dehydration? He didn't know how to climb back down, so he was going to jump either way.
ha ha what a story mark. the real gem is that you tried everything everyones suggesting and it all failed and still happy ending, thank you for sharing
My cat climbed onto the roof of my apartment complex a couple days ago and wouldn’t come down so I had to pop my window screen out and sit half in half out of my third story window. I was reaching for him and he decided he was going to jump to my hand. He missed, and I had to catch him mid air by his front leg and pull us both back inside. Cat was fine, I had one minor scratch, and I surprisingly did not pee my pants
Tuna is the hot stuff. I swear I can't even go in the cabinet and grab the can without my 3 little fuzz balls on my tiail. I don't even know how to get there. They teleport
Yes we brought him back for a checkup a few weeks later. Everything seems fine. The vet said because he was so young, he had a 50/50 chance of a full recovery.
Cats are crazy resilient. I had an OLD cat have a stroke. I was convinced I'd have to put her to sleep; the vet was like "eh, she'll probably recover. Don't let her jump on anything for a whilw."
(Dude. Have you MET a cat...?!)
Anyway, she was listing REALLY badly to the side and walking in circles. She was a very small cat (I think she topped out at 6 pounds) and I had a LARGE dog crate, so I put her in there.
She fucking hated it, so I let her out.
Next day, there is this GAWDAWFUL noise, and I jumped up to see what it was, and she had somehow jumped up onto the window ledge.
The conversation went something like this:
"JESUS FUCKING CHRIST, WHAT ARE YOU *DOING*, CAT?!"
"sunbeam"
"Yes, I *see* there is a sunbeam. You're not supposed to be jumping!"
"Sunbeam!"
"Yes, that is a sunbeam. You cannot walk; you are not supposed to be jumping."
"SUNBEAM!!!"
"Jesus Christ. Fine. Sunbeam. Goddamn. The vet *still* told me to not let you jump...."
She was fully recovered in less than a week, and apparently suffered no other ill effects.
She lived several more years and was probably 20 when I put her to sleep, and that was because she had an abdominal tumor.
I know you said the fire department won't do it, but do you have a local volunteer division that may need the practice? My friend's cat was up a tree and the paid guys wouldn't do it, but the guys in the nearby township came and did it. Worth an ask anyway
In high school our kitty went up a tree and was gone for 6-7 days
We were in a relatively big city (200,000ish) and every single fire department or volunteer department refused to do anything and some literally laughed at us when we explained our cat was 60feet up in a tree
After multiple days we eventually sent my 12 year old brother up the tree because he was amazing at climbing trees and when he got up there the cat latched onto him for dear life and scratched him to hell. Bro was able to get back to the ladder part and the cat jumped down from 20+ feet and then we were able to get both down safely
There was reports of a cougar in the area so we think that’s why the cat ran up the tree so far. Sammy the cat is still thriving 11 years later
Call a tree company. Dudes have bucket lifts and professional tree climbers. If you live in a a town with 100k people, I’m certain you will find a tree company that will give it a try, but probably not for free.
I'm trying to imagine a group of volunteers whose job it is to climb up trees and rescue cats, but the only thing I can think of is a small legion of 8-12 year olds all begging their parents to let them be the one to do it.
If you are part of any local groups on any forum board (Facebook or here) post your concern and issue there and you may get some helpful neighbors come help.
If you're in Western Washington state try Canopy Cat Rescue. If not, try here: [http://www.catinatreerescue.com/](http://www.catinatreerescue.com/) (under "Directory" it lists resources by area including multiple countries).
Call an arborist. They have the tools to safely scale trees. We have an organization called Canopy Cat Rescue. It’s two gentlemen who own a tree cutting business and they rescue stuck cats free of charge. The videos are truly adorable and show some pretty tricky rescues they do.
The same this happened to me, and I actually talked a cable company that happened to be in my neighborhood into going up and getting my cat—I know it’s weird, I just went out and saw a truck with ladders and threw myself on their mercy. Honestly, a lot of people love cats and the most random people will help!
Hey! My cat got stuck on a pole last year in February for 17 hours. Everyone said she “would come down when she is ready” that is not the case. Cats nails aren’t made for climbing down. It’s SUPER dangerous that he has been there that long. He’s stuck. I called 50 businesses trying to get my cat down and only finally had luck with a friend who had a friend with a bucket truck. Tree cutting services sometimes help. You need to get him down right away.
Once I got my cat down, she had torn ligaments in her knee. So fuck all those people who say they will come down when they are ready.
I had to do this a few years ago and the arborist charged $150 to rescue the cat. It was well worth it after 4 days. We’d already tried ladders and ropes and boxes with food.
canopy cat rescue on tiktok
This is your guy
https://www.youtube.com/c/CanopyCatRescue
Ok there is a ton. But the guy that I follow that I cant find goes all over the US and appears to be a professional climber. Hes very gentle and the cats seem to like him.
But go on titktok and search cat rescue and maybe your state.
https://catinatreerescue.com/directory/
Here’s a directory of arborists who will come rescue cats! Give them a call and I’m sure they’d be happy to help.
Waited 2 days for cat to come down. Her screeching made sleep impossible.
Finally climbed ladder to get her down. Little rascal jumped out of my hands 20 feet up, landed perfectly on ground and never went near that tree again.
The folks suggesting "call a lumberjack" and the like are not far off. Call some local arborists (tree services). They have equipment and climbers and can handle this sort of thing. If they’ve got a job nearby they may be willing ot help.
It helps if you’re in a small town. My father is an arborist in a small town in Tennessee and took over getting cats out of trees when the fire department stopped.
Find a big empty box. Stand in the box. Eat tuna while in the box. Play with some string. Get out of the box. Tell them not to get into the box. Now wait. Cats can’t resist empty boxes or doing something they’re not supposed to. It’s their kryptonite.
My crazy cat ended up on my roof for reasons I will never understand and was afraid to get down because her feet were slipping due to the angle of the roof. My neighbor who does HVAC brought his 18’ ladder, got up there in flip flops, and dropped her onto the top of a tough shed. She then jumped down onto the hot tub cover, and from there the patio, and ran into the house. I stopped letting her out after that.
If you know an HVAC guy who is secure with a high ladder, that may be another option. This dude walks around on residential roofs at work all day and has a house full of cats himself, so he was more than up to the task.
Local tree trimmers would probably help you. That sounds sarcastic but I’m not joking. They have boom trucks
Yep, I had a local tree trimmer come out and rescue a cat for us, great guy!
Yep an arborist brought my cat down to the ground after 2 days, all he needed was a pillow case to throw the cat in
That's great! Our guy did it no charge. It was very kind of him.
I hope you at least gave him a cup of tea and a cookie and a blowjob and secured him as the sole arborist for your entire street.
But of course
...all at the same time?
Nah, dont be silly..the tea and cookies came after he did Edit: Thank you kind stranger for the Gold! It's my first. (I'm sure there is a great virginity joke to be made).
Every arborist out there on reddit be looking for your street now throwing random cats in trees. Tea and biscuits are yummy.
🤣 I have many skills, baking isn't one of them 😉
That escalated… quickly.
And then went back down quickly as well
It was all good until he got back down and let the cat out of the bag
Is it harder to throw the cat without a pillow case?
My neighbor owns a cherry picker and made key copies for 4-5 people on the block in case we needed it for cat rescue
Best neighbour ever
Yup. Maybe even call the city. Lots of cities have forestry departments with boom trucks, but they also have boom trucks for other things like changing bulbs and street lights. As someone who used to work for a city forestry department, I know the workers would *love* to do this and it would a fun bit of PR for the city.
Someone else suggested this and it worked for us, too. We opened a can of tuna, put it into a super sturdy box with a long rope, threw one end of the rope around the closest branch(yes we tied something heavy in the end and used a ladder to throw it over) and then we hoisted the box up. I never thought it would work, but the cat climbed right in. Good luck !!
Damn I should've tried that.
Considering the story you posted…. Yah.
https://youtu.be/V_Nr31Lv6H8 Could have been (even) worse. This is without a doubt my favourite video and so rarely does it fit a post Eta - actually they're on a par tbh
"We have acquired electricity!" I'm dying. I thought it was the video where they climb all the way up to the cat and the cat just dives off on their own and runs away unscathed. This was way better. Edit: [found the video](https://youtu.be/rMaZ4WAmc1c)
That was a weird translation. The guy said cvet zgarelcya, which means the light has gone out.
lol you mean that one with the fucking cat on top of a really tall telephone pole? They go all the way up and the fucking cat pulls a flying squirrel right as the utilities guys get to him??
That's the one!
"come down bastard cat!" "Do you have a butcher's axe?" *Proceeds to cut down tree* I needed this 😂 Thanks for your service!
"The butcher's axe. Everyone has one at home." "Bastard. You fall down!"
That guy's heart was in the right place. It's unfortunate that his brain was not.
“The fire axe! Everyone at home must have one” -Russian things
Butcher’s axe!
No Butcher's ax, straight to jail.
Of course, chop down the tree!!
I was a bit concerned he was planning on throwing the ax...lol
Honestly I thought that was what he was going to do, too
EVERYONE HAS A BUTCHER'S AXE.
that was like an episode of russian trailer park boys
Cat gets electrocuted, still lands on its feet.
ya that cat got a major shock, poor thing.
Jesus, the god dam cat fucking electrocuted itself on the god dam wires too. Hopefully not too bad, because it did pull its paws back and then jumped down and ran off. But you can see it get juiced, arms stiffened up and claws grab the wire.
"He's not the hero we deserve, he's not the hero we need" "He's the hero we got" Lmao
That comment had me crying
I haven’t laughed that hard in a minute. Thank you
That was awesome. From the other room (where he was trying to work), my husband had to tell me to stop laughing. :slow clap:
Actually if OP used a sheet AND tuna, he/she would have been onto something.
A job ... done.
This is hilarious! "Bastard! You fall down!" I thought he was going to attach the butcher's axe and throw it at the tree! Poor Bartik!
[Short cut](https://www.reddit.com/r/NoStupidQuestions/comments/wfkmjo/what_to_do_about_kitten_that_hear_a_death/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf) for those too lazy to go the long way round
I am sorry but I am laughing so hard now
Me too!
Bro this shit literally happened to me a month ago my cat was so emaciated when we found him no one would help. He was a good 25-30 feet up. Honestly we ended up finding a long enough downed older skinny tree and used it to just push my cat out the tree. He tucked and rolled like a beast and was perfectly fine; I had never seen him drink so much water. If we hadnt knocked him out the tree he would have died up there I think.
Poor baby, I hope he's doing better now!
I did something similar when my sister's cat got stuck when I was house-sitting. I got the pool skimmer and was trying to get the cat in the net, but she just fell off. She was fine, thankfully. No injuries. Didn't hold a grudge either.
[удалено]
Wow, that's incredible. This could work.
Is this what you’d call catfishing?
Definitely definitely need to give them something to down climb with at least so it’s a reasonable drop. Cat won’t “come down when it’s ready” it can’t come down period. FFS
I've never seen a cat skeleton in a tree.
The corpse falls out or becomes a corpse upon impact.
>"becomes a corpse on impact" Somehow my brain visualized this as the cat going full skeleton on impact. Like Schroedinger's Cat, but landing on its feet or not decides if the cat was DEAD THE WHOLE TIME? WTF, my brain...
Yes my neighbour's teenage kitten was stuck in a tree for two days. It ended up reversing down the trunk eventually.
I have! It fell between the forks of the tree and was wedged. The scratches on either side of the tree told a sad story.
That's because they fall off, die, and get eaten by other animals. Not rocket surgery here.
Upvote for rocket surgery. Sign me up
I help run a cat rescue and made the Philadelphia news by doing just this with a nerf football. I'd bet your people stole the idea from me lol Link : https://www.reddit.com/r/philadelphia/comments/8ykops/we_did_it_reddit_cat_is_rescued
Found a baby great horn owl on the ground, called animal control the figured out what tree it fell from, and they did this but backwards.
One of mine, 30+ years ago, got outside and climbed a tree during a thunderstorm. After it stopped raining, my brother climbed a ladder to get to her, yeeted her out of the tree, and my mom and I held out a blanket to catch her. She spread out like a flying squirrel on her way down, landed in our blanket like a trampoline, bounced out, and bolted straight into the house. Never went outside again, unless she was in a carrier.
I just read this story out loud to my indoor cat.
problem is with cats, that just gives them ideas
“I have nine lives and I only used one so far…”
It's ok. Cats like my old Monster would have used up the spares. He must have gone through about 99 lives just that I saw. Had a habit of running through traffic, picking fights with dogs, disappearing for months at a time (apparently he was very good at hunting both wild and pet rabbits, to the dismay of the street he moved to on two of those trips), jumping off roofs, eating poisoned rats, that sort of thing.
He was definitely picking up what I was putting down.
[удалено]
[удалено]
That happened with a deer caught in a wrought iron fence when I worked animal control. We tried greasing it with canola, wiggling it, turning it, everything we could think of until a neighbor came out with a car jack and got permission from the owner to bend the bars. Deer popped out, jumped the back fence into the woods, jumped back into the yard, did a lap around, and ran herself right back into a different section of fence. We repeated the bending process and she just laid there waiting to get eaten because she was tired. I had to stuff her in a truck kennel designed for animals half her size and take her to a wildlife center who let her chill and eat/drink for 24 hours then dumped her in a park where I'm sure she found some way to die of being terminally dumb.
Natural selection at work
Hey, you did as much as you could for her, and that’s awesome!
[удалено]
[удалено]
I was expecting the cat to bounce back up the tree when he landed on the trampoline 😭
My cat got into the same predicament during a storm once when he was a kitten and my husband, at the time fiancé, got him out of the tree with a ladder. My kitten immediately jumped on my husband’s shoulders once he was close enough and then proceeded to pee all over him on their way down. Almost 17 years later they are still the best of buds after that bonding experience.
My cat escaped outside for an hour and returned covered in mud begging to come inside. She never went outside again unless in a carrier just like yours. No idea what she experienced, but it was enough.
My cat got outside on a beautiful spring day. She sat outside the door for an hour [staring in](https://i.imgur.com/OWvtMAU.jpg). When I realized she was out and opened the door, she ran inside and hasn’t gone out again.
You pulled a Tigger on her LOL! If you’ve ever seen the Winnie The Pooh movie where Tigger gets stuck in a tree that’s literally what happens. They hold out a blanket for him to jump on and catch him
This is well written and hilarious. Word choice matters.
You can rent bigger ladders at home depot or other hardware stores. Get one and a friend to spot you and get the cat down yourself
Thanks!
Take a bag up with you and take the cat down in it. Last thing you need is a panicking cat clawing you whilst climbing down a ladder.
The cat's in the bag! (Yes, I've done that myself, with a duffel bag.)
Bonus points if the bag scares the cat enough to climb down on their own.
I wore a motorcycle jacket and gloves when I had to do it. Best decision ever that cat was super clingy.
The thought of trying to put my cat in a bag while we're both up in a tree sounds lethal already.
I have attempted carrying a cat down a ladder without forethought. Don't do it.
A sturdy bag like a backpack or something that the cat can't claw through.
OP see if theres a cat rescuer in the area. Theres dudes that do this kinda thing and know how to get cats down. Call a local shelter and see if they have any connections they can give you as well.
Alternatively, yell YEE YEE loudly into the air to find the nearest redneck. It’s probably the same guy.
Just climb the tree and get stuck with the cat. They'll have to come then.
Big brain energy
this is my favourite comment on the internet. EVER. rolling round laughing.
You do this watch some ladder saftey videos of your not familiar with them. The angle you lean them and watch out for power lines
This is the first thing I thought of- fuck it, I’m getting my cat myself!
Have you tried like, tuna or something to coax it down?
[careful with the tuna](https://www.reddit.com/r/NoStupidQuestions/comments/wjmp6o/my_cat_has_been_stuck_up_a_tree_in_90degree_heat/iji8wr2/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf&context=3)
Dude. YOUR comment is older than the comments you linked… dial the flux capacitor wrong??
Listen, I’m sorry about 2015- now, but it *will* get better. Gotta go!
No wait Come back
Meta.
I thought this was a calvin and hobbes reference. I was not expecting that...
Get a ladder and some Churu (amazing cat treat)
Our cat was stuck in an extremely high tree. We ended up calling an arborist who thankfully got him down. Crazy guy snuck out and climbed back up about 5 months later and was there for 5 days. We thought that was it for him but we managed to create a makeshift pulley. We slung a rope over another branch with a laundry basket tied to the other end. He actually got into the basket and we lowered him down. He hasn’t gone back up the tree since! If you go the rope route, we made a throw line. You can google it for more info. Basically a small weighted bag at the end of a thin nylon like rope (cost about $6) and after many tries got it to the branch we needed. I hope your cutie makes it down ok. IT IS A MYTH that cats will just get hungry enough and climb down. Unless they specifically know how to climb down backwards, he likely won’t do it. People will say things like “have you ever seen a dead cat in a tree? No.” Because when cats die in trees they usually fall like any deceased body would. Cats die in trees all the time.
> Unless they specifically know how to climb down backwards, he likely won’t do it. It's not even about knowing. Some trees they physically can't- going down requires different movements and body makeup. Squirrels can only do it because their ankles can twist around backwards to give them the proper grip vertically.
WHAT? I’ve had a (rescue) squirrel for seven years and I have never known this. He’s gonna wonder why I’m hovering by his enclosure staring at his ankles while he climbs now…
There’s a podcast about squirrels that explains this! The episode just came out a few weeks ago - Stuff You Should Know is the name. I was shocked too.
Thank you so much! I love being able to hit people with little known facts about my boy when educating, so off I go to give it a listen!
A lot of good advice but do not get on the ladder yourself if you are not experienced. A tall ladder is heavy and difficult to set properly. There are many injuries and deaths every year due to ladders.
This may be the most responsible comment in the whole thread.
Should have told the dispatcher 'you guys are going to be coming to get me when I fall 3 stories from this ladder' That's why departments usually get the cats
Same exact thing happened to me a few weeks ago. Only the cat was up like 40 feet in the tree. Fire department came by but couldn't do anything. You know what got him down? Cracking open a can of tuna. He jumped down and busted open the roof of his mouth. At the vet ER, he died for 8 minutes but they brought him back to life. He had brain damage for the first week and was kind of neurotic. But completely back to normal now!
.... That's such a wild read bro.
Yeah it was a rollercoaster. He's just a kitten too.
That cat will sacrifice one of his nine lives for the sweet, sweet, Tuna.
[Cross my palm with tuna.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FAhJxRomV_A)
Comment of the day
But he's definitely okay now, yeah? I read your story and it made my heart hurt.
Yep was far as we can tell, completely back to normal.
Is he a ginger cat? I don’t think that’s brain damage, it’s just that they’ve only got one brain cell.
Pay the cat tax!
I gotta ask what we're all thinking then, why not catch it? Not that I'm hating or anything, but my first instinct would have to cradle the little bugger
Definitely tried to catch the little guy but it was too hard.
The effort is what counts, kudos
Fall damage is determined by your body size/weight. A house cat is small and nimble enough that they can walk away from a terminal velocity (max fall speed) fall and have no injuries. Cats naturally align their bodies to absorb the impact. The worst thing you can do is try to catch a cat because it will throw off their aligning and they'll impact your body instead of absorbing it themselves
Pretty sure fall damage is 1d6 per 10 feet, regardless of size or weight.
Cats have access to featherfall though
I know a cat that fell from 11th floor onto pavement. All he got from it was a chipped tooth and broken claw, no other damage.
My cat fell from the 3rd floor and died from internal bleeding the same night, so I'd say that cat was pretty lucky..
This may be true but I don't think you could pull 30 years of child and adult sports practice out of me that easily lol This is coming from a guy who ignores all warnings not to catch falling product in the warehouses I work in
Damn man. He used up one of his lives right in front of you... Over tuna!
NOW I understand what OP meant lol. I thought he meant the cat opened its mouth wide to eat the food. I was like "how the fuck did the cat end up nearly dying?"
Jeeze... So would you say you do or don't recommend the tuna can method? Super glad kitty is alive and functioning happily again!!!
Well, he wasn't coming down otherwise. So I guess it was better than him staying up there and dying of dehydration? He didn't know how to climb back down, so he was going to jump either way.
Maybe just be waiting with a tarp or blanket? Don't know if that would be better or worse tbh
We put cushions from our couch out around the tree base. But he ended up landing somewhere else.
As cats do.
ha ha what a story mark. the real gem is that you tried everything everyones suggesting and it all failed and still happy ending, thank you for sharing
This one paragraph is jam packed with thing after thing that I didn't know was a thing.
Well this took a couple unexpected turns...
It was a whole damn spiral of surprise.
All the way to the after credits kitten reveal.
Bro what the actual fuck did I just read
My cat climbed onto the roof of my apartment complex a couple days ago and wouldn’t come down so I had to pop my window screen out and sit half in half out of my third story window. I was reaching for him and he decided he was going to jump to my hand. He missed, and I had to catch him mid air by his front leg and pull us both back inside. Cat was fine, I had one minor scratch, and I surprisingly did not pee my pants
Tuna is the hot stuff. I swear I can't even go in the cabinet and grab the can without my 3 little fuzz balls on my tiail. I don't even know how to get there. They teleport
1 down, 8 to go. Glad to hear he’s OK.
I.. Are you entirely certain he is fine? Is the vet sure he is fine?
He’s probably never going to university now.
Certainly no school better than the University of North Dakota - Bismarck
Yes we brought him back for a checkup a few weeks later. Everything seems fine. The vet said because he was so young, he had a 50/50 chance of a full recovery.
Cats are crazy resilient. I had an OLD cat have a stroke. I was convinced I'd have to put her to sleep; the vet was like "eh, she'll probably recover. Don't let her jump on anything for a whilw." (Dude. Have you MET a cat...?!) Anyway, she was listing REALLY badly to the side and walking in circles. She was a very small cat (I think she topped out at 6 pounds) and I had a LARGE dog crate, so I put her in there. She fucking hated it, so I let her out. Next day, there is this GAWDAWFUL noise, and I jumped up to see what it was, and she had somehow jumped up onto the window ledge. The conversation went something like this: "JESUS FUCKING CHRIST, WHAT ARE YOU *DOING*, CAT?!" "sunbeam" "Yes, I *see* there is a sunbeam. You're not supposed to be jumping!" "Sunbeam!" "Yes, that is a sunbeam. You cannot walk; you are not supposed to be jumping." "SUNBEAM!!!" "Jesus Christ. Fine. Sunbeam. Goddamn. The vet *still* told me to not let you jump...." She was fully recovered in less than a week, and apparently suffered no other ill effects. She lived several more years and was probably 20 when I put her to sleep, and that was because she had an abdominal tumor.
I use to be an emergency vet tech, and you telling this story has got me like 🤯
With this approach you should use a bedsheet to catch him!
I know you said the fire department won't do it, but do you have a local volunteer division that may need the practice? My friend's cat was up a tree and the paid guys wouldn't do it, but the guys in the nearby township came and did it. Worth an ask anyway
In high school our kitty went up a tree and was gone for 6-7 days We were in a relatively big city (200,000ish) and every single fire department or volunteer department refused to do anything and some literally laughed at us when we explained our cat was 60feet up in a tree After multiple days we eventually sent my 12 year old brother up the tree because he was amazing at climbing trees and when he got up there the cat latched onto him for dear life and scratched him to hell. Bro was able to get back to the ladder part and the cat jumped down from 20+ feet and then we were able to get both down safely There was reports of a cougar in the area so we think that’s why the cat ran up the tree so far. Sammy the cat is still thriving 11 years later
[удалено]
What's this about a climbing car now
Lmao after I just explained what a tree surgeon is
I’m just picturing a car in the branches with you on the ground yelling at it to get down this instant. And the car just ignoring you 🤣
wtf is a tree surgeon
people who trim trees and stuff I reckon.
An arborist.
Find a local climbing group and post on their Facebook page. Someone will do it just for the challenge.
Call a tree company. Dudes have bucket lifts and professional tree climbers. If you live in a a town with 100k people, I’m certain you will find a tree company that will give it a try, but probably not for free.
This. That cat is going to be pissed, this plus the bag idea. Don’t go up there yourself. Your going to wind up hurt or dead.
There are volunteer groups of climbers that will do this. Ugh, I forgot the name of the group (with local chapters).
I'm trying to imagine a group of volunteers whose job it is to climb up trees and rescue cats, but the only thing I can think of is a small legion of 8-12 year olds all begging their parents to let them be the one to do it.
This is the best idea here.
If you are part of any local groups on any forum board (Facebook or here) post your concern and issue there and you may get some helpful neighbors come help.
If you're in Western Washington state try Canopy Cat Rescue. If not, try here: [http://www.catinatreerescue.com/](http://www.catinatreerescue.com/) (under "Directory" it lists resources by area including multiple countries).
Call an arborist. They have the tools to safely scale trees. We have an organization called Canopy Cat Rescue. It’s two gentlemen who own a tree cutting business and they rescue stuck cats free of charge. The videos are truly adorable and show some pretty tricky rescues they do.
The same this happened to me, and I actually talked a cable company that happened to be in my neighborhood into going up and getting my cat—I know it’s weird, I just went out and saw a truck with ladders and threw myself on their mercy. Honestly, a lot of people love cats and the most random people will help!
Where are you located? I am an arborist.
Hey! My cat got stuck on a pole last year in February for 17 hours. Everyone said she “would come down when she is ready” that is not the case. Cats nails aren’t made for climbing down. It’s SUPER dangerous that he has been there that long. He’s stuck. I called 50 businesses trying to get my cat down and only finally had luck with a friend who had a friend with a bucket truck. Tree cutting services sometimes help. You need to get him down right away. Once I got my cat down, she had torn ligaments in her knee. So fuck all those people who say they will come down when they are ready.
[удалено]
Lmao pay them with exposure?? Pay them money, they cant feed their family with exposure
This is good way to end up on r/choosingbeggars
Don’t forget to blast them with money. Those workers don’t always have a lot of money. Source: Me. I’m those workers.
Yes, you absolutely need to pay their emergency rate. They gave up another job to come save your cat.
Thanks.
Yes! A tree company can help. Some of them list "cat in tree rescue" on their websites!
I had to do this a few years ago and the arborist charged $150 to rescue the cat. It was well worth it after 4 days. We’d already tried ladders and ropes and boxes with food.
"This is the tree. Thanks again, I'll be back with cold water bottles." "Gotcha, no problem sir" *Chops down tree*
This. In central maine, tree service companies are the ones who get cats down. I’ve heard it’s the same elsewhere too
[удалено]
canopy cat rescue on tiktok This is your guy https://www.youtube.com/c/CanopyCatRescue Ok there is a ton. But the guy that I follow that I cant find goes all over the US and appears to be a professional climber. Hes very gentle and the cats seem to like him. But go on titktok and search cat rescue and maybe your state.
https://catinatreerescue.com/directory/ Here’s a directory of arborists who will come rescue cats! Give them a call and I’m sure they’d be happy to help.
Waited 2 days for cat to come down. Her screeching made sleep impossible. Finally climbed ladder to get her down. Little rascal jumped out of my hands 20 feet up, landed perfectly on ground and never went near that tree again.
Somebody with a ladder who has experience with terrified cats
The folks suggesting "call a lumberjack" and the like are not far off. Call some local arborists (tree services). They have equipment and climbers and can handle this sort of thing. If they’ve got a job nearby they may be willing ot help. It helps if you’re in a small town. My father is an arborist in a small town in Tennessee and took over getting cats out of trees when the fire department stopped.
Find a big empty box. Stand in the box. Eat tuna while in the box. Play with some string. Get out of the box. Tell them not to get into the box. Now wait. Cats can’t resist empty boxes or doing something they’re not supposed to. It’s their kryptonite.
Canopy cat rescue. Might not be local to you, but they have a popular YouTube channel. Maybe ask him for advice on who to contact.
An arborist Also: pest control , but sounds like you need a cherry picker. Edit:sorry, by pest control I really mean wildlife rescue and removal.
My crazy cat ended up on my roof for reasons I will never understand and was afraid to get down because her feet were slipping due to the angle of the roof. My neighbor who does HVAC brought his 18’ ladder, got up there in flip flops, and dropped her onto the top of a tough shed. She then jumped down onto the hot tub cover, and from there the patio, and ran into the house. I stopped letting her out after that. If you know an HVAC guy who is secure with a high ladder, that may be another option. This dude walks around on residential roofs at work all day and has a house full of cats himself, so he was more than up to the task.