A cat that was stuck in a tree for nine days in Iowa received a helping hand from a Minnesota arborist who saw the owner's appeal for help online and drove three hours to rescue the kitty.
Ordeal of John Dear
The two-year-old cat named John Dear was stranded about 40 feet up a tree. His owner, Theresa Klimesh, shared the story in a post on Threads last Saturday. “It looks like we’ll lose our cat that is up a tree now for 7 days,” she wrote in the post that garnered over 11,000 likes on social media. “He cries at us and can’t get back down because of the angle of the trunk,” she added, noting that ladders were not tall enough to reach him.
Arborist to the Rescue
Among the thousands who responded to the post was an arborist from Minneapolis who drove three hours to help extricate the forlorn kitty from its precarious perch. The arborist, later identified as Dakota Deringer from Kota Tree Care by a colleague on Threads, spoke out on the social media app Sunday, writing: “Thanks for love ya’ll! This cat rescue going viral is cool and all (and many foster/shelter orgs here in Minnesota will certainly be getting checks next week!) but I have a small business to run. No way I can respond to all these messages, but happy to have done my part to help a cat in need and restore some faith in humanity. I always tell people I’m just a dude that knows how to climb trees and likes cats, so this is simply a Venn diagram overlapping to form a perfect circle!”
Health Update
As for a health update on John Dear, Klimesh said Monday that he has lost one-and-a-half pounds and has low blood glucose from the ordeal, but is otherwise in good health. “He will not be let out unless he’s on a leash from now on… Again, thank you so much for your support in this trying time … love you all,” wrote Klimesh on Threads.
