City bylaw officers are trained and ready to protect and serve scaredy cats.
The officers recently underwent some bucket-truck training to ensure the next time a Whitehorse cat trees itself, they can respond, said bylaw department manager John Taylor.
“We have situations off and on where people call in and say ‘we have a cat up a tree and it won’t come down.’
“The fire department isn’t able to react to it, so what happened is some of the tree-pruning companies would do it.”
After a successful kitty rescue using a bucket truck, bylaw department senior constable Dave Pruden and Tom Piket of public works decided to hold a training session to ensure all bylaw personnel were trained in cat rescue, said Taylor.
The training was needed because rescuing cats could represent an occupational health and safety risk, he added.
“Now, when things come up, instead of looking foolish when someone calls and says ‘this cat has been up a tree for four days’ and doing nothing about it, we can react to it and do what I think we should be doing about it.
“If someone comes in with this, they know where the bucket truck is and how to operate it and can attend to the scene and can, hopefully, get the cat out of the tree.”