How to rescue cats from high places

By Raquel López "Legal expert and educator in animal law" Passionate about animals

For five days, a golden tabby kitten less than two months old was trapped nine metres up on the roof of a two- storey house.

I know about this case because it happened near to where I live, so I knew that this kitten was in trouble and I called the 112 emergency services number.

I know from my work that when there is an emergency, for a person or for an animal, that this is the number to call to ask for help.

The advantage of calling this number is that all calls are recorded.

The reply I received from the girl who answered was basically the following two questions:

1. What is the address? 2. Whose cat is it?

In reply, I gave her the address and explained that the cat did not have an owner therefore Murcia city hall was responsible because this happened in an area that belongs to this municipality.

Then she told me that she would pass on the message, without giving me details of to whom.

By about 22.00 at night nobody had appeared, not the fire brigade nor the police, so I looked up the number for the local fire station on Google and called them.

I asked them to pass me to the shift manager ( jefe de guardia) at the station and he was very friendly with me and told me the following:

“The fire brigade can come out no problem, but this costs a minimum of € 300. However, if city hall calls me tomorrow from the Zoonosis centre ( the municipal animal shelter) and the cat doesn’t belong to anybody, then you do not have to pay the bill.

“Also, if we come now it would be more complicated to catch it at night so I advise you to wait until tomorrow.

“I’m sure that if you have called 112 and the local police, they will report it to us tomorrow morning and we will go that morning to get it down.”

I ended the call by saying OK, we would do it like that, following his advice.

Nevertheless, as I was not certain that 112 had really reported it to the Murcia Zoonosis centre and/ or that they may have ignored the report and may not come – since I and my neighbours had called 112 for two consecutive nights – I decided to post photos of the kitten meowing on the roof on my personal Facebook page, to see if anyone else had an idea of how to get it down without resorting to the fire brigade.

The response from the social networks was impressive! People gave me lots of options, a total of 10, most of which I had never considered.

I want to share these options with you so that if at any time you have to rescue a cat that is stuck somewhere high up you will have these choices:

1. Contact a television aerial or satellite dish installer.

2. Contact a company that puts up fiesta lights in towns because they have elevating machinery ( like a cherry picker).

3. Contact a gardening company because they prune palm trees so are used to climbing up high and/ or have elevating machinery.

4. Contact a telephone and internet company because they also usually have tall ladders and/ or elevating machinery.

5. Contact a builder because they usually have scaffolding.

6. Call your insurance company and say that the cat is yours, then call the fire brigade and your insurance will pay the fire brigade’s bill.

7. Call the fire brigade ( which I had already done).

8. Call a company that rents out elevating machinery.

9. Call a crane company.

10. Call a house moving company because they often have elevating machinery too.

In the end, the kitten was rescued the following day by the fire brigade and workers from the Murcia Zoonosis centre, and afterwards it spent 10 days there.

I went to see the cat there and they told me it was a female, and I decided to name her Rali.

The animal welfare association La Casita de López got Rali out of the animal shelter, and on the same day also took a black and white male kitten called Sweet who was with her. The two are very like siblings and are being socialised, and they are seeking an ideal family to adopt them both.

If you would like to be their family, you can contact the animal welfare association by sending an email in Spanish or English to casitadelopez@ gmail. com

For more information about animal law in Spain and Raquel’s online courses in the subject, see her website www. deanimals. com