Cat-astrophes: Part 1

Remember that Dog-saster story about Cash?  Well this past Friday night, we had another pet panic moment, but this one was a Cat-astrophe.  And I again will hope there's only one.  Like I mentioned a few weeks ago, our family just moved into a new house.  The living room and kitchen area has really tall ceiling and hence, really tall cabinets.

Dear sweet Ginger likes to climb on cabinets, which has always been more of a nuisance than anything.  About a week after we moved in, it struck me to climb on the counters and check out the top of the cabinets to make sure everything was safe and secure.  I found a triangular opening on either side of the over, which is caddy-cornered in the kitchen.  I called in the tall one, who looked down the chute and confirmed 1 - this is a 9+ ft tunnel that drops to the floor from the top of the cabinets and 2 - The other cabinets are screwed into this chute, which means the opening is lined with screws.  We agreed that we needed to seal this opening up before Gigi found herself at the bottom of the chute or worse.

A few weeks passed and we sort of forgot about the opening, until last Friday night.  Ginger was up on the cabinets, and my parents and grandmother were up for the Rutgers game (sigh...just...sigh).  Ginger was sitting on the top of the over cabinet when a moth perched over the opening.  She lunged, airborne over the opening and the she plummeted to the bottom hiney first.  I screamed and everyone stared at me - no one else saw it happen!  Ginger immediately started howling, so Ryan figured out pretty quickly what was going on, but the rest of the family was confused.  I got Ryan the flashlight while I explained the problem.

While he checked on Ginger, I implored him to get a saw and saw her out.  There was no telling what injuries she had sustained, and I was anxious to check her out.  Ryan, however, upon seeing that she was okay, jumping to try to get out, and not laying in a pool of blood like I feared, decided to take a little time to get creative before sawing his new cabinets.

First, he fed a bedsheet down the opening, hoping she would grab onto it and he could pull her out.  Of course, she didn't oblige.  Then he had the genius idea of using one of Alli's pet nets from IKEA (seen here).  He thought maybe if he fed that down the tunnel with a little bit of turkey that perhaps Ginger would be enticed to jump in a cubby hole and be lifted out.

That little brat ate the turkey and didn't set a paw in the cubby.  Of course, by this point I was getting more and more adamant that we cut her out of there.  Ryan asked for one more shot, so I allowed him that.  At his request, I brought him rope from our move.  Using his expert army skills, Ryan fashioned a slipknot, which he fed down the chute.  I heard him say "Come on, girl.  Come on kitty.  That's it.  Stick your paw in..."  Then I saw him scrambling, and Ginger emerged at the top, thoroughly lassoed by her neck and leg.  I snatched her from him and checked her over - she seemed completely fine and had already forgotten about the whole incident.

Needless to say, some of our Sunday was spent at Home Depot getting plywood and officially covering the holes.  It's always an adventure around here...