Sylvester the house cat was saved on Tuesday, after spending 12 days up a tree by his home near Loudendale.
Clifton Moss, owner of Moss Tree Service, found out about Sylvester from his neighbor on Tuesday, the day an article about the cat appeared in the Gazette-Mail. Sylvester had been stranded up a dead birch tree by a home on Kanawha State Forest Drive.
After approaching John and Kay Cooper, the couple caring for the cat for their adult son while he's away, Moss said he climbed up Tuesday afternoon, pulled aside some power lines that were in the way and used a chainsaw to cut a notch in the limb where Sylvester was perched. The limb slowly fell into Davis Creek below and Sylvester jumped into the water about 10 feet before the limb made contact.
Moss, of Sissonville, has worked in tree service for 45 years. He said people have regularly found his name under tree services in the phone book when they needed help retrieving cats from trees.
"I've took probably 20 to 30 cats out of trees in my lifetime," Moss said. "... I've never heard of one being up there 12 days."
Moss finished the job by cutting the other limb on the dead tree down as well.
"That way the cat won't go back up on the tree," he said.
John Cooper said he was "really glad" Sylvester was no longer in the tree, although the cat ran off after landing in the water Tuesday afternoon and didn't return until evening.
"My wife and I had a hard time getting to sleep the last few nights thinking about him up in the tree with nothing we could do about it," he said.
The Coopers had surmised that Sylvester might have ended up in the tree because of coyotes. They had contacted a fire department, the humane society and another tree service about rescuing the cat, with no success.
Sylvester had gotten himself into similar trouble twice before. Last time Sylvester got stuck in a tree, he came in the house right away afterward to eat and drink.
"I think he's scared," Cooper said, before Sylvester had made it home. "I figure he's out drying himself off somewhere, but I keep hollering for him. Usually he's on the porch at nighttime ready to come back in the house. The three times he didn't come back in the house, he ended up in the tree, so he better get back here."
After Sylvester came home at about 7 p.m., he immediately headed for the food and water bowl, Cooper said. After that, the Itty Bitty Kitty Committee, a nonprofit animal rescue organization, took the cat to Kanawha Valley Animal Emergency Services to be checked out.
"He seems to be in pretty good shape for what he's been through," Cooper said. "He was glad to be in."
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