Pet Portraits by Sherry

Recently two of the neighbors dogs got together and decided to roam and terrorize the neighborhood. Actually the dogs, according to the neighbor, just showed up at his house, so he doesn't really claim them.  Anyway, they go from house to house to see what they might get into.

One of our cats ended up in a tree running from them twice.  The first time we did everything we could think of to get him down.  He was so high we could not reach him after climbing up.  Finally after about eight hours of being up there and with me shaking his food bowl, he went out further on the limb and ended up falling out.  He did not land on his feet, regardless of what we've all heard about them always landing that way.  When he hit the ground, he got up and took off.  I found him and tried to console him.  He seemed unhurt and was ok but very watchful.

A few weeks later this happened again.  We couldn't find him and finally my daughter heard him up in another tree.  Again he was so high we couldn't reach him although we tried many times.  He stayed up there all night and of course I was worried to death about him after reading on the net how some animal might get to him.  All day the next day we tried different things.  He would come down part way but would just sit mewing and looking at us at a certain point.  He would go out on the limb the opposite direction where it started to getted smaller and at times he almost fell but would drag himself back up. 

After the second night and day up there, hubby went out and prodded him with a long pole.  Finally, he got him further down the trunk and he ended up falling again, but it was not as far as it could have been.  He again took off and I had to talk into coming out from under the porch. We brought him in and comforted him and let him stay in all night. 

Needless to say, my husband told me to let him stay in because he knew I would not have any peace and neither would he.  :  )  Oreo, the cat,  isn't comfortable in the house though, so he is staying on the screened-in porch.  He was very happy for the first couple of weeks but I think he would like to venture back out into the outside world now but I'm not ready for that. 

As I searched for ideas to get him down on the internet, I saw stories of how other's kitties had stayed in a tree for much longer, one was even for seven days!  They eventually called a tree service and paid over $100 to get their cat down.  I don't think I could have stood it that long.  That's what my husband was afraid of.