Thursday afternoon, while we sat at the airport, we got a text from our neighbors that poor pitiful (stupid?) Pablo kitty had been stuck really high in another neighbor's tree since we left Monday (after being chased by another neighbor's new dog). Ok, so that's already almost 4 days he had been there with no food/water. They called the fire department, who came out and declared that they couldn't help. Animal Control doesn't respond to pet-in-tree calls anymore... So, we thanked them for the call and figured we'd take care of it when we got home. So, we get home in the middle of the night and head to the backyard to see exactly where he is. We can hear him meowing from somewhere way high up in the neighbor's tree, but couldn't see him. Oh well, we had to wait til morning - day 5 - to see where he was. When daylight came, here is what I saw:
Can you see him in the upper left? And this pic doesn't even show the massive bottom half of the tree that has no branches... All day Friday, we called to him... No luck, he just meowed and stared at us. So, by late afternoon, we borrowed a neighbor's tall ladder...
Tony headed on up (with a harness connected to tree to prevent a fall)...
But he was still pretty far away... And Pablo still refused to budge...
Eventually, we used a different neighbor's (it became a community affair) pool skimmer to try and "poke" him down... No such luck... We put some tuna at the base of the tree, thinking maybe that'd draw him down...
Saturday - day 6 - STILL in tree... Tony even called some tree trimming companies to see if they'd come climb up there with their spiky shoes to grab him... No luck there either... After calling/pleading with him all morning, we finally realized we HAD to get him ourselves, or soon we'd have a kitty skeleton in a branch. Sorry there aren't pics of that... Essentially, we duct taped our big koi fish net to the end of the pool skimmer. In the net we put a big bucket (to keep the net open) filled with tuna. Tony put that up there right below Pablo and he went crazy for the food. Tony kept inching the net farther and farther from him as he put his head in to eat. Eventually, he lost his balance and fell in the bucket. Now, Tony just had to lower him down. But, the angle was really awkward and about 1/2 way down, Pablo leaped out and back onto the tree! NOOOOO!!! Luckily, it was right near the top of the ladder... Tony used the pole to hold him down and I scrambled up the ladder to grab him. We took him home and he had a snack... And proceeded to take a really long nap in his heated bed in the shed... What an adventure!!!
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