In many ways this is a standard cat rescue from a telegraph pole. The cat raced up to escape a dog apparently. Someone called for a ‘rescuer’. And I am impressed with the man. But he did not take a cat carrier with him. He climbs to the top and places the scared ginger tabby on his shoulder. I am not sure I would be as confident as the rescuer that the cat would stay there. It depends how panicked the cat feels. But under those circumstances a lot of cats might be reluctant to plonk themselves on the shoulders and keep still. But he was pretty confident that it would work out and it did.
Note: This is an embedded video from another website. Sometimes they are deleted at source, or the video is turned into a link which would stop it working here. I have no control over this.
You have to have a head for heights to do this. It is well beyond me nowadays as I become anxious. Why can’t cats get down from trees and telegraph poles by themselves? It is a big discussion on the internet. No one has come to a definitive conclusion. I have always said it is because cats can’t go into reverse!
Their claws point backwards which means they can grab and go forwards up a pole with relative ease but doing down they have to go backwards as they need to use their claws. Cats don’t like going backwards. It seems that it is not in their inherited behaviour. Sometimes cats will race down trees forwards and use the branches on the way to brake their descent.
But as we all known there are no branches on telegraph poles which means shimmying down in reverse is the only way and they either can’t figure that out or don’t like the thought of doing it until they really have to move after a few days and hunger drives them to take the risk.
The rescue took place in Thailand.
Below are some more articles on animal rescue.
