Climbing cat needs home
<p>Ida Nichols, hired a tree service recently to remove this stray female cat from a pine tree adjacent to her Coeur d'Alene home.</p>
COEUR d'ALENE - Ida Nichols has a problem. The cat she rescued adores her. And Ida's real cat hates the new cat, so you can see the potential problem. "She's a sweet little kitty. You'd think she'd be traumatized," Ida said. "But she isn't."
COEUR d'ALENE - Ida Nichols has a problem.
The cat she rescued adores her.
And Ida's real cat hates the new cat, so you can see the potential problem.
"She's a sweet little kitty. You'd think she'd be traumatized," Ida said. "But she isn't."
Ida went to great lengths saving the 5-month old kitten, who was stuck in a 45-foot tree for two days.
Call the fire department?
They don't do that, as they have more pressing issues.
"I thought that too," Ida said, after she first called for fire engines to get the kitty down. "I guess I watch too much TV. They said, 'give him food, he'll come down.'"
But it didn't.
The kitten was abandoned in the neighborhood near Forest Cemetery on Monday night, and in its fright, went straight up the tree for two days, meowing non-stop not too far from Ida's bedroom window.
But the police and animal control couldn't help either, though they sympathized.
"It was pathetic to see him up there, he's just a little thing," Ida said.
So she called Specialty Tree Service, the limb whacking company that has all the equipment for climbing
"We're usually the last resort," said owner Ken Roberge. "They call the police, the humane society, the fire department, everybody but us.
"Nobody else wants to do it, I don't know," he said. "It's probably out of their primary responsibility in the area."
But they've called Roberge enough, as he has brought down 50 treed cats in 30 years of business. Some have stayed up as long as a week - as high up as 90 feet - and on Wednesday Roberge brought down Ida's stray - who doesn't want to leave.
The Kootenai Humane Society has a waiting list of 40 people to drop off cats, too.
So the cat, which has six toes on each paw and Ida has named Poly in the meantime, needs a home.
Jake, the regular cat, can't stand her.
Contact: (650) 520 8423