Treed cat comes to ground

After spending six days near the top of a towering evergreen tree, Ron and Lori Johnson's cat, Sophie, on Saturday made it to the ground under her own power.

The Johnsons believe Sophie most likely wouldn't have survived much longer.

"I think she was pretty close, probably, and had figured out that she had to get down or die in that tree," Lori Johnson said.

All efforts to coax Sophie down from the tree, which stands in a small copse on the Johnsons' property south of Whitefish, had proven unsuccessful.

On Friday, Kurt Reimer, who owns Midway Rental, donated the use of a self-propelled lift with a 65-foot boom to help retrieve the cat.

But as the boom lifted Reimer and Ron Johnson closer to Sophie, the frightened cat scampered beyond reach - almost to the top of tree.

After listening to Sophie's doleful whimpers throughout Friday night, the Johnsons on Saturday discovered Sophie had climbed down to within 40 feet of the ground. Ron made another attempt to reach the cat with the lift, which Reimer had left overnight, but the commotion sent Sophie clawing back up out of reach.

On the suggestion of a person who called after reading Saturday's Inter Lake story about Sophie's plight, the Johnsons built a small platform as high up in the tree as they could reach and loaded it with pungent sardines and water.

And when the Johnsons returned from an engagement Saturday evening, they noticed the platform had been disturbed and Sophie was no longer in the tree. She was hiding under the deck, but refused to come out.

"She was totally traumatized," Lori Johnson said. "She was just so scared."

The Johnsons left Sophie some food and water, and the cat soon was meowing at the back door to be let inside.

Lori said she and her husband received calls from numerous people who offered suggestions ranging from topping the tree to using tranquilizers.

"I can't even tell you how many phone calls we had," she said, noting that the first call came at 7:30 on the morning the Inter Lake story ran. "It's truly amazing how many people were concerned."

Sophie doesn't appear to be starved or dehydrated past the point of recovery, Lori said. On the advice of a veterinarian, the Johnsons are feeding their pet small amounts of food and water every hour.

"I think for the most part she's doing pretty good," Johnson said.

Since her return to the ground, Sophie - rescued by Ron from the Columbia Falls gas station where she had been abandoned in July 2007 - follows the Johnsons around almost constantly.

"She's very, very affectionate, probably more so than she's ever been," Lori said.

Lori said she didn't know what caused their gray-haired, green-eyed pet to bolt up the tree, but speculated it may have been a coyote.

Reporter Nicholas Ledden can be reached at 758-4441 or by e-mail at nledden@dailyinterlake.com