I think this video deserves a bit more publicity which is why I’ve decided to cross post it as some people will have missed this good cat news story. What is good about it is that we see an Idaho state trooper i.e. a policeman in European language, taking a fully committed dive onto the snow by the side of a highway to capture a domestic cat that was about to race into a forest perhaps never to be seen again. It’s a commitment to animal welfare which pleases me and will please many other animal lovers and those who care about animals. The date is Feb 3rd so it is no longer hot-of-the-press news but it’s good news nonetheless.
It is why this video from the police officer’s vehicle camcorder has proved to be so popular. And I think it does a wonderful job in promoting the Idaho State Police.
Note: These are videos from other websites. They are embedded here. Sometimes they are deleted at source which stops them working on this site. If that has happened, I apologise but I have no control over it. There are two the same in case one goes kaput 👌.
The video comes from the Idaho State police’s Facebook page. The policeman concerned is Trooper Llerenas. He had pulled over a van that was travelling along the I-90 Interstate Highway that runs east-west across the northern United States.
He pulled it over because it side door had come open and items were flying out onto the highway. When he checked out the van he found two people, two dogs and a domestic cat inside. He also found that the people were in possession of “multiple controlled substances” which means illegal drugs. They were “booked into jail on drug charges”.
Trooper Llerenas made arrangements for an animal shelter to take in the two dogs and cats. The dogs behaved themselves but while he waited for the shelter employees to arrive the cat made a dash for it towards the forest. Impressively, Trooper Llerenas responded instantly by diving flat out onto the snow to grab the fleeing cat. He just managed to get his hands around the cat.
It was a critical moment because I’m sure other people will recognise the dangers for this cat if he had managed to flee into the forest. Who knows what might have happened to him/her? It is likely that he would have become lost and disappeared. At the very least it would have been a difficult rescue operation to find him, using up precious man and woman hours to try and find and capture him and getting into the shelter.
So, Trooper Llerenas’s “leap of faith” to use the words of the Idaho State Police was a defining moment in the rescue of this cat companion.
As it happens, it looks as if the police officer manages to get hold of the cat’s tail. It was that close a call. It was the only bit of anatomy that he could get hold of. This is not ideal, obviously, but the trooper had no choice. It is the speed of response which impresses.
