Cat rescued after getting head stuck in dumpster

Grease and sedatives were key ingredients in the rescue of a cat that got its head stuck in the drain hole of a dumpster in Town of Mead, Colorado. The animal had apparently got its head stuck in the dumpster at least two days before someone noticed it on Monday. Mead Code Enforcement and Animal Control Officer Ismael Aldana said: "It looked like this cat had been there a minimum of 48 hours.





"It was pretty dehydrated and exhausted. It was trying to get its head out." Aldana said the cat stuck her head in a drain hole on the commercial-sized dumpster to get at the food inside, probably pizza and fries, and couldn't get her head back out. He added that the man at the scene who reported the cat had placed a box under the cat's feet, because she was basically hanging out of the hole. Aldana contacted Longmont Friends of Feral and Abandoned Cats, who agreed to take the cat.





He also called the Town of Mead Public Works Department, so they could come up with a solution. "We put our brains together to see what we were going to do," he said. Eventually, electrical grease supplied by the town's Public Works Department and sedatives from Mead Veterinary Medical Center were the keys to freeing the cat. Aldana said once the cat was sedated, he rubbed grease onto her neck and was able to get her head out of the drain.





Tonni Loutzenhiser, Executive Director of Longmont Friends of Feral and Abandoned Cats, said the cat appears to be healthy. She said the animal is feral, but her organisation is going to try to tame her. Loutzenhiser said if they can't tame the cat, they will try to find her a barn home, but she believes they will be able to tame her because she is still young. Aldana said Mead is a small town, so the cat's rescue was a big deal for Town of Mead animal control department. "I don't think that cat would have made it if he stayed there for the rest of the day," he added.