Sox On A Tree

One Sunday afternoon, I was driving home after being out on a property treating 2 down cows and my emergency phone rang.
I stopped on the side of the road and picked up. The caller was very distressed because his cat had been missing for two days and has been spotted by his son on the netting over the vineyard about 10 meters high. The cat was meowing and unable to climb down and their son had tried to tempt it with all types of food. He could not find a ladder high enough to access the cat. They were especially concerned because their cat most likely has been up there for the past two days. To make the situation even worse, it was frosty cold out there.

These owners had expended all avenues (police, RSPCA, SES) of help and could not get any assistance so were calling me as a last resort. I decided to take full charge of the situation and so called my boss first up. I asked if he had any contacts in the fire brigade, unfortunately he did not.

I then called the state emergency service (SES) and explained the delicate situation and their response was: ‘We are sorry but we do not respond to cat emergencies that include them being stuck up on trees or etc. We recommend you call the RSPCA.’ I explained to them that the RSPCA is not operational over the weekend and they could simply offer me no solution.

At that stage, my blood was starting to boil. If it was a dog stuck up a tree (not a very common scenario I know), I had a sneaking suspicion that they would have responded to that emergency.
I proceeded to call two radio stations asking them to air the critical situation and ask for anyone who has access to an appropriate ladder to come forward. Unfortunately one of the radio stations turned me down and the other said they can’t air it at this very minute because they were covering the AFL for the next few hours. I was in the same boat as the owners now in terms of pent up frustrations at lack of response or empathy.

You can only imagine how helpless and devastated I was at that stage. I was ready to buy some rock climbing gear and figure out a way to get up there myself to resolve this tragic dilemma. I chose to make one last call and it was to the police. They were absolutely wonderful because they put me straight through to the country fire authority (CFA) hotline. I pleaded my case to them and they told me they would ring it through to our local CFA but there was no gaurantee that they would respond to the emergency. The CFA must prioritise human crisis over any others and they left it at that.

The challenge at that stage was I did not know if the CFA was going to show up. My boss grabbed his biggest ladder and I drove off behind him to the location of the cat. On our arrival, we were relieved to see the CFA had beaten us there. They had just climbed a tall ladder and grabbed the cat as we arrived. I took video footage of that moment, check it out on you tube. We took Sox to the clinic and examined him and started warming him up. He was in perfectly good shape and the owners arrived shortly after and cuddled their handsome boy and took him home safe and sound.

A very big thank you to the castlemaine CFA!!!

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Filed under: Cats, Emergency wrap up, Random Adventures Tagged: Animal welfare, australian vet, cat, cat in tree, CFA castlemaine, Pet, rayya the vet






Source: http://rayyathevet.com/2011/07/13/sox-on-a-tree/

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Rayya The Vet

I was born overseas and grew up in Lebanon. About 9 years ago, I left my family and friends behind to pursue my dream of becoming a veterinarian in Australia.

I have now been out in practice for the past 5 years. I absolutely love being involved with all types of animals and consider it my "calling". Whilst my job can be quite an emotional rollercoaster ride, I cannot fathom doing anything else for as long as I am living. I simply feel blessed every day that I am practicing what I truly love.

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