Should I have left the cat in the tree?

Not to sound cruel, but I think I’d leave the cat up there until he was ready to come down. My reasons are (1) he got up there; if he’s an adult cat, he can probably get down, and (2) for safety—you might fall, especially if the cat got spooked and started jabbing at you.

Every time I have ever “saved” a cat, the cat didn’t seem very appreciative, and I have ended up bitten, scratched, or both. Every time I have resisted the urge to go charging in, the cat ended up just fine.

Of course, sometimes a nagging wife is worse than a scratch on the arm…

@gemmasgma—HAHAHA, too true.

@gemmasgma not getting the response you would like from an animal, doesn’t mean that it’s not worth it to save it’s life…
@Austinlad Adult cat or not, sometimes they do get up somewhere where they can’t safely get themselves down again.
@rts486 should you have left the cat in the tree for how long? If it’s up there for even 12 hours there’s probably something wrong already and it’s stressing about how to get down, sometimes they do need a little help. So no, you should not have left the cat IMO.

I agree with @NaturallyMe. A cat would not stay in a tree for over 24 hours just because it could. It gets hungry.

Also, the original cat has not gone back up in a tree since then, has it? It learned its lesson.

I think you did the right thing. If you got stuck somewhere you’d want someone to help you :)

Here is a very funny videos of a cat rescue. I saw one on the news last week where they took a cherry picker and lifted up to a cat, which promptly ran down the tree on his own.

I have yet to see a cat skeleton on a tree branch.

@boffin you’ll probably find this skeleton at the bottom of the tree because they fell out the tree from exhaustion and hunger or because of a desparate attempt to climb down. An animals in distress should be helped.