Tiki, a 20-year-old blind black and white cat, loves to roam outside. But this time he caused a scare after he was spotted floating on ice in a pond in Massachusetts and then falling into it.
He has an alert passerby and a few nearby construction workers to thank for his rescue.
“The crackling happened and I was hysterical,” passerby Dawn Felicani recalled Thursday. “And suddenly he fell into it! His little head was sticking out! I’m in tears and I’m panicking.”
She called first responders and a local animal control officer in Westford on Monday. One of two construction workers from a neighboring house got into a rowboat and the other pushed him out and helped him navigate Nabnasset Pond. The worker in the boat used a shovel as he moved to break through the ice and get him out of the water.
Tiki was brought inside, dried off and wrapped in blankets.
Animal control officer Kirsten Hirschler said in a news release that Tiki was shivering, lethargic and in shock. He was taken to a vet. She said his temperature was so low “it didn’t even register on the thermometer.”
She said she believed Tiki had been chased onto the ice by a predator and was trapped there. Normally he doesn’t dare to go that far, his owner John Arden said on Thursday.
Tiki is doing well and acting as if nothing ever happened, Arden said.
He and his wife have owned Tiki since he was a kitten. He has been blind for about a year, but he is still doing well.
“He’s pretty annoyed that he can’t go outside anymore,” Arden said.