The story about Vladimir Vasechkin, who devoted himself to saving cat souls, was told by the journalists of the publication "Such things".
For more than fifteen years, Vasechkin has been engaged in industrial mountaineering and arboristics, treatment and pruning of diseased trees. And along the way, he saves cats stuck at altitude. Vova Vasechkin is a creative pseudonym. Irkutsk rescuer does not advertise his real name. But in Irkutsk, perhaps, everyone who is not indifferent to animals knows him. A video of Vasechkin teaching Huck the cat to climb down from a pole has gained 3.4 million views on his social network page. More than 89 thousand people have subscribed to the YouTube channel about saving cats. Vasechkin's cat rescue service is also called "cat rescue" by the locals.
"Now many callers are sure that the Cat Rescue Service is an entire organization, maybe even the Ministry of Emergency Situations. And not the only modest Vladimir Vasechkin," the newspaper writes.
Our hero has a higher technical education and extensive experience in the IT field. He says that he followed in the footsteps of his father, a cool specialist in electronics and binary logic. About fifteen years ago, he saw equipment for industrial mountaineering from a relative, became interested and went to study. Then he was one of the first in the region to master arboristics. As a result, he traded the IT sphere for climbing trees. That's how cats and Vasechkin met in Irkutsk. Friends asked the first cat to be removed from the tree, then friends of friends asked for help, word of mouth started working.
"After a while, the emergency services found out about me and also started calling me when they were asked to remove the cat. One day I took off five cats," says Vladimir Vasechkin.
Our hero's dialogues with cats on the tops of trees melt the hearts of even the harshest people. "You're climbing up, but you have to learn to go down. Your claws are excellent. Come on, move your paws like this," Vasechkin patiently explains to another poor guy stuck in a pine tree. The cat meows plaintively, clinging to the trunk. Vasechkin carefully moves the gray paws down a few centimeters one by one, encourages the cat and repeats the exercise with the paws several more times, - this is how journalists describe the work of the rescuer of Irkutsk cats.
Vova Vasechkin himself says that cats cannot climb down from a great height on their own. Most often, they are driven to the top by dogs. The cat, in a panic, flies up a tree or a pole, from which it can no longer descend.
"I experimentally tried all the ways to lure cats down. Valerian was poured on the ground, a rag soaked in valerian was slipped under the nose of a cat on a tree. An animal under stress does not react to this. Climbing up is an instinct, climbing down is an already acquired skill," Vasechkin says.
However, there are cats who manage to get into trouble several times. The record holder in this case is the black cat Sam. Vasechkin has already removed it from the tree four times.
The savior of cat souls himself says that it is not always necessary to immediately rush to shoot animals from a height. In the warm season, a cat can sit for a couple of days without consequences, recover, calm down and get off if there are no dogs running around. But in winter, in the cold, of course, you need to take it off at once, so that the animal does not die.
The photos are provided by "Such things".