Stereotypical Cat Incident

Max has had lots of opportunities to spend time outside recently, but it's only in the last week or so that the weather has been warm and dry enough for him to want to spend any significant time there. This past Saturday it was 75+F. We let him outside in the morning, and he spent the rest of the day practically "drunk" with sunshine. Several times we tried to entice him inside, but he was perfectly happy where he was.

As the sun sank below the horizon, we called for Max but saw or heard no sign of him. Finally at about 9pm, I went outside to call for him again and this time heard a faint response. I walked around, continuing to call and listen for his response, trying to locate its source. After less than a minute of this I could tell that the sound was coming from the stand of trees to the west of the house. As I walked closer, the sound seemed to get stronger but seemed to be coming from above until finally the sound was directly above me.

Yes, that's right: Max was stuck up a tree.

Max wasn't up just any tree, either; he had climbed a Grand Fir, a coniferous tree with relatively small branch spacing and dense needles. By this point it was completely dark outside, so Corinne pulled the car over and shined the headlights on the tree to help find him. The branches were so dense that it was difficult to see more than a few feet up the tree. After several minutes of searching we caught sight of him about 15 feet up the tree, wrapped around the trunk.

After using our neighbor Jack's orchard ladder last fall, we bought our own 12' model, and it seemed that this would be its first use. We grabbed the ladder from the shop and got it as close to the tree as we could. From the top of the ladder I could see Max a few feet above me, but I couldn't get close enough to him to help him down. I talked him down several feet but then he just wouldn't go any further and I still wasn't close enough.

At this point we got out one of our pruning saws and pruned the lowest row of branches so that we could move the ladder in closer. Max really must not have liked this - and I can't blame him - because he had started to froth at the mouth, and his whining had turned into more of a whimper. But now I was at eye level with him at the top of the ladder, and while he was clearly scared, he was still responsive to me and I managed to talk him out onto a branch so that I could grab him, put him on my shoulder, and walk down the ladder. Once off of the ladder, he jumped off my shoulder and ran into the house.

He didn't seem too worse for wear after his ordeal, but he was very restless that night, pacing from room to room, never settling very long in one spot. The worst part, though is that his fur now was speckled with sap from the tree. He would try to clean himself as cats do - using his tongue - but he would make a terrible face and shake his head every time he did. Over the next day or so he managed to clean himself up pretty well, and we would find small clumps of hair scattered around the house where he had pulled out some of the sappy fur. When we let him outside the following day, he spent the entire time sitting on the stoop right outside the door. Since then he has gradually returned to normal outdoor behavior.

We're still curious as to what prompted him to climb up that tree. Did he hear something (real or imagined) that spooked him? Was he chased by a local dog or coyote? I guess we'll probably never know.

- Mike (& Corinne)