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Nov. 16th, 2018 05:33 pmOn Wednesday, Sable went out in the morning and failed to come in for her lunchtime snack.
This is unusual, but when she didn't turn up at teatime either, we got really worried. It was dark by then, though, and tracking down a black cat in the dark is a hopeless task.
Yesterday morning, I went round the neighbours, talked to several and put notices in the letterboxes of the rest, asking them to keep an eye open for a small black cat. About half an hour after I got home, I got a call from one of them, who thought our cat might be in their tree. We both trotted round at once, equipped with a cat carrier and some treats.
It was indeed Sable in the tree. How she got up there is anybody's guess, because it was a spindly and exceptionally thorny specimen.
When Julian mounted the ladder to try to reach her, she fled into an adjacent (and rather sturdier) tree, well out of reach. There was nothing we could do to get her down, so we went home, glad that at least we now knew where she was. And she was out of reach of foxes, so. I called the PACT sanctuary from which we'd obtained the cats, and they suggested that a tree surgeon might be best qualified to reach the cat.
This morning, I went round to the (different) house in whose garden the new tree was. An immense garden, indeed, with a bit of what might in effect be Ancient Forest at the end. Sable was clearly interested in my presence. I spent a couple of hours cooing at her and encouraging her to come down—which she did, a bit, only to retreat back upwards again. Several times. Meanwhile, Beast called the RSPCA for advice, and after a while, also started calling round tree surgeons. And brought our long ladder round, only to find that Sable wasn't having any truck with actual rescue, thanks very much.
The tree surgeons *and* an advisor from the RSPCA arrived more or less simultaneously, so we invaded the poor neighbour's garden and one of the chaps got himself up the tree to assess the situation. Which, by now, was that the cat had retreated to the highest, thinnest branch that she could reach, about thirty feet up, where no man could follow.
The tree, it turned out, was mostly dead. The solution, it turned out, was to saw off the branch upon which the cat was sitting (after tethering it safely, of course). This, he did. The cat was by now fluffed up to the apparent size of a quite large cat (she's about 5-6lb, so she's tiny). The branch fell, Sable fell, missed the handy sheet the rest of us were holding to catch her, and scarpered into the dense bushes. We caught a glimpse of her scaling the fence without difficulty.
So I went home, while Beast helped the tree chap escape, and brought the ladder.
Sable was not outside the back door when I got there, but I sent Fluffy out and the two of them returned together a few minutes afterwards, and were rewarded with the lunchtime snack tray. Sable has been given small portions of what ought to have been her breakfast every hour, so as not to allow her to stuff herself sick. She seems none the worse for her two nights nesting, but has retreated to the safety of the top of the bookshelves. She and Princess Fluffykins exchanged some frankly disgusting anal inspections; I hope Fluffy has groomed her and upbraided her for her absence.
In all, a day both tedious and dramatic, but with a satisfactory ending.
In conclusion, cats.
This is unusual, but when she didn't turn up at teatime either, we got really worried. It was dark by then, though, and tracking down a black cat in the dark is a hopeless task.
Yesterday morning, I went round the neighbours, talked to several and put notices in the letterboxes of the rest, asking them to keep an eye open for a small black cat. About half an hour after I got home, I got a call from one of them, who thought our cat might be in their tree. We both trotted round at once, equipped with a cat carrier and some treats.
It was indeed Sable in the tree. How she got up there is anybody's guess, because it was a spindly and exceptionally thorny specimen.
When Julian mounted the ladder to try to reach her, she fled into an adjacent (and rather sturdier) tree, well out of reach. There was nothing we could do to get her down, so we went home, glad that at least we now knew where she was. And she was out of reach of foxes, so. I called the PACT sanctuary from which we'd obtained the cats, and they suggested that a tree surgeon might be best qualified to reach the cat.
This morning, I went round to the (different) house in whose garden the new tree was. An immense garden, indeed, with a bit of what might in effect be Ancient Forest at the end. Sable was clearly interested in my presence. I spent a couple of hours cooing at her and encouraging her to come down—which she did, a bit, only to retreat back upwards again. Several times. Meanwhile, Beast called the RSPCA for advice, and after a while, also started calling round tree surgeons. And brought our long ladder round, only to find that Sable wasn't having any truck with actual rescue, thanks very much.
The tree surgeons *and* an advisor from the RSPCA arrived more or less simultaneously, so we invaded the poor neighbour's garden and one of the chaps got himself up the tree to assess the situation. Which, by now, was that the cat had retreated to the highest, thinnest branch that she could reach, about thirty feet up, where no man could follow.
The tree, it turned out, was mostly dead. The solution, it turned out, was to saw off the branch upon which the cat was sitting (after tethering it safely, of course). This, he did. The cat was by now fluffed up to the apparent size of a quite large cat (she's about 5-6lb, so she's tiny). The branch fell, Sable fell, missed the handy sheet the rest of us were holding to catch her, and scarpered into the dense bushes. We caught a glimpse of her scaling the fence without difficulty.
So I went home, while Beast helped the tree chap escape, and brought the ladder.
Sable was not outside the back door when I got there, but I sent Fluffy out and the two of them returned together a few minutes afterwards, and were rewarded with the lunchtime snack tray. Sable has been given small portions of what ought to have been her breakfast every hour, so as not to allow her to stuff herself sick. She seems none the worse for her two nights nesting, but has retreated to the safety of the top of the bookshelves. She and Princess Fluffykins exchanged some frankly disgusting anal inspections; I hope Fluffy has groomed her and upbraided her for her absence.
In all, a day both tedious and dramatic, but with a satisfactory ending.
In conclusion, cats.