Cat in tree for 5 days

For five days, Ron and Lori Johnson's cat, Sophie, has been stuck near the top of an 80-foot fir tree near the couple's home south of Whitefish.

Exposed to the elements and without food or water, the cat's plaintive mewings carry clearly to the surrounding fields.

The Johnsons have contacted just about everybody in the valley even remotely capable of rescuing their pet - including two tree trimming services, Flathead County Animal Control, the Humane Society, pest-control companies that specialize in animal removal and a couple of veterinarians.

But solutions have been slow in the offering.

"Everyone said that the cat would come down when it gets hungry enough, but I've heard horror stories where the animals get so weak they just drop off," Lori said. "We are to the point, with the hot weather this weekend, that we'd rather put it out of its misery than have it die of starvation or dehydration."

On Friday, Kurt Reimer, who owns Midway Rental, donated the use of a self-propelled lift with a 65-foot boom - one of the few options remaining to the Johnsons.

"It's hard to let a cat just sit up there and starve," Ron Johnson said. "And I just don't know how else to get it done."

Reimer, who has known Ron Johnson for years, said his company offered the use of the lift out of a sense of community.

"We grew up here. We're three generations here. They're our friends and neighbors," he said.

But as the boom lifted Johnson and Reimer closer to Sophie, the cat spooked and scratched her way even farther up the tree. Long minutes of trying to coax her to the basket proved unsuccessful.

"We're pretty much at the end of our rope," Lori Johnson said. "I don't know what else to do."

If Sophie gets out of her current situation alive, it may mean using the second of her nine lives.

The first was lost when Sophie was just a kitten, and Ron rescued her from the Columbia Falls gas station where she had been abandoned in July 2007.

"He saw this little thing dart out from underneath a Dumpster and almost get hit three times," Lori Johnson said. "Finally he just said, 'I can't sit here and watch this,' and brought her home."

She said she didn't know what caused their gray-haired, green-eyed cat to bolt up the tree, but speculated it may have been a coyote - of which there are plenty around.

"She just can't stay up there much longer," she said. "The thought of just letting her sit up there and die, I just can't comprehend that."

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