Temperatures were dropping, a storm was expected, and the Chesney’s gray-and-brown tabby was stuck up a tree.
Again.
The appropriately dubbed “Risky” is an indoor cat, Wendy Chesney of Rindge said Tuesday. But that doesn’t stop his desperate desire to sneak outside whenever he has an opportunity.
“He wants to go out non-stop. He’s an escape artist,” Chesney said.
Risky was a ninth birthday gift for her daughter Katelyn Chesney, who picked him from a litter of kittens from her aunt’s cat.
He’s mischievous and high-energy, Chesney said, chasing his humans for treats and enjoying the outdoor view from his cat tower. The family usually enjoys his playful side, but when it’s come to his determination to slip outside, it makes it difficult.
Chesney’s even put up gating around her porch, to try to stall him when he sneaks out, which she said does happen occasionally. Usually, she or her daughter are able to catch him, or he comes back on his own. But Risky also has a bad – and dangerous – habit of climbing trees and getting stuck.
The first time Risky got himself trapped in a tree was about four years ago when he got himself in a particularly precarious position, high in the thin limbs of a tree that dips out over Pearly Lake, making it impossible for a rescue attempt by the fire department or the town’s animal control officer. And he wasn’t coming down on his own.
Not for five days. The family could do nothing but watch as Risky got physically weaker, but still wasn’t able to make his way down the tree.
That’s when she got the recommendation to call tree services and found Trevor LaPerle. She called several services, she said, and most told her that the cat would eventually come down on his own.
LaPerle, owner of LaPerle Tree Services in Winchendon, agreed to make a rescue attempt, and was undaunted by the fact that Risky was not particularly cooperative with his efforts.
In an interview Tuesday, LaPerle said he occasionally gets calls for cats in trees, though only a few times in his career. He’s accommodated them when he can.
“We’ve always gotten them down,” he said. “We don’t get them often, but when we do, we try to get right on them. A lot of people won’t take the time, but I try to do it. We don’t advertise for it, that’s for sure, but when the call comes, we get on it.”
LaPerle remembers the 2016 call where he first met Risky, and climbed the 40-foot tree to lure him out with some cat food. Despite Chesney recalling Risky scratching him, LaPerle said the fact that Risky didn’t try to jump or climb higher meant it was a “smooth” rescue in his book.
That was in 2016. LaPerle has responded twice more to the Chesney’s property since to help rescue the unrepentant cat from trees. And on Friday, he responded again.
Chesney said she first realized the cat was missing on Thursday night, and spent the whole night intermittently getting up to call for him, to no result. On Friday, after work, she and her daughter made another attempt, and heard a distant faint yowling which has become familiar to them after Risky’s other escapades. They found Risky up the same precariously placed tree over the lake as the first time he had to be rescued.
Despite it being late in the day on Friday, and involving a two-hour drive, LaPerle didn’t hesitate, Chesney said. He told Chesney that with the high winds expected that night and the storm incoming, he would try his best to get the cat down as soon as possible.
LaPerle said he was putting dinner on the table for his children when he got the call, but decided to skip his own meal in an attempt to get to the cat before the light went. He wasn’t successful in that – it was fully dark before he got there – but he went up after the cat anyway.
It’s a small thing, Chesney said, but meant everything to her and her daughter.
“That’s heroic,” she said. “To me and my daughter, he’s an absolute hero.”
Risky seems unphased by his experience, Chesney said, having slept and recovered for a few days, before going back to his old routine of scratching at the door, asking to be let out.
“He doesn’t learn,” Chesney said mournfully.
Her daughter turned 15 on Nov. 24, Chesney said – the sixth anniversary of getting Risky – and Chesney said LaPerle gave her daughter “the best birthday gift she could ask for”. Being able to go to bed and know that her cat was safe. Because Risky’s not just a cat, Chesney said. He’s part of the family.
“It’s a life. We just cherish this animal, and he means a lot to us,” Chesney said.