This might a little bit off-topic, in that the pet in question was in some distress (and eventually, danger), but it fits with the “trapped in small spaces” motif.
This was written (elsewhere) in July of 2006, about Scritch the budgie:
It All Came Crashing Down
Last night when I got home I couldn’t find Scritch.
Those of you who have been reading the adventures of Our Heroine know that she recently laid an egg in a shoebox. She was able to do this because we’ve been leaving the birds out of their cages during the day now, though still closed in the bird/computer room, although in my defense I should mention that I have had my own doubts about their safety with no humans around.
So it’s not unusual for me to have to look around a bit for Scritch when I get home. She has some standard hangout spots and she’s almost always in one of them.
But not last night. So I’m checking around, mindful of not setting down anything heavy, calling for Scritch, when I hear a little knocking sound. It seems to be coming from the big bookcase.
Said bookcase is tall, about a foot and a half short of the ceiling, and burdened with a LOT of stuff – books, magazines, comic books, art supplies, coin collections, knickknacks, and so on. Although we’ve covered the front of it to keep the birds from chewing up books and stuff, a determined bird could get back there and hide in a number of places.
So I removed the barriers we’d placed in front of the bookcase, cleared away Cosmo the cockatiel’s cage, which stands in front of this bookcase, and started carefully removing some paperbacks I thought Scritch might be hiding behind.
Knock-knock-knock.
Now that sounded like it was behind the bookcase.
Due to our baseboard, the case stands out a ways from the wall and leans a little; there IS enough room, in theory, for Scritch to be wedged in behind it. I fetched a flashlight and peered behind the shelving. I couldn’t see her, but Buddie’s cage was blocking the view. (Buddie is our hen cockatiel). Buddie is currently paying about half-strength attention to some infertile eggs she’s laid on the floor of her cage, so I very carefully packed up and moved her cage. I was starting to be conscious of the need for speed.
Birds breathe constantly; their respiratory cycle is different from ours. They have no diaphragm, and need to expand their ribs to breath properly. This makes them VERY vulnerable to suffocation if their ribcage is constricted.
Finally I removed a barrier I’d put up to protect the birds from chewing on the wall paint when they stand on Buddie’s cage. I peered into the dusty darkness behind the shelving and there was Scritch!
Tail down, head up, wedged tightly. 
Her cheek feathers were fanned out, from stress or just being out of order, and she did not, or could not, call out. Her gleaming black eye regarded me with apparently complete trust, and she tapped her beak against the back of the shelf like a trapped miner signaling rescuers. Knock-knock-knock.
Ugh. I still have no idea how she got back there…it looks like she might have slid down from above, perhaps looking for a nesting cavity, and as the bookshelf leaned away from the wall, become wedged as she descended. I had no idea whether she’d been there all day or just slipped down – or how much longer she could manage to breathe.
Still, the rescue looked to be a straightforward operation – remove items from the front of the bookcase until the bookcase was light enough to slide straight out from the wall. I was home alone, but one person could manage.
I started from the top. Some maps and a roll of plastic sheeting left over from Homeland Security shelter-in-place measures. Next a wire-and-canvas storage box with some papers in it.
The canvas box was hooked over the top of the bookshelf.
When I pulled it forward, the bookshelf rocked toward me.
Instantly I thought of Scritch, sliding further down into the viselike gap, and the enormously heavy shelf rocking back toward her tiny body.
Well, as you can imagine, all sorts of adrenaline and horror surged in me.
I dropped the canvas thing instantly and seized the shelving, holding it to keep it from settling back. I stuck my head around and peered desperately into the dark crack.
Scritch had slipped down a little, and her little eye was fixed on my face. But she seemed to be alive.
But now what?
I couldn’t let go of the bookcase. It was way too heavy, since I hadn’t removed all the stuff, to hold in place with one arm and try to lift Scritch out, even if I could have bent that way. And was she still able to breathe?
There wasn’t time to try anything more sophisticated. I leaned the case waaaay forward, so far I was sure everything was going to slide off the shelves, but it didn’t. Scritch slid down toward the floor, almost looking like she was enjoying her ride, and I was able to lift the bottom of the bookshelf away from the wall just enough.
Our Heroine dropped safely to the floor.
And promptly ran underneath the heavy bookshelf.
I invite you to pause at this dramatic moment and consider the physical situation. I did NOT KNOW if the bookshelf bottom had enough space for Scritch to cower and not be crushed. So I absolutely could not lower the case to the ground. But I was holding the heavy unit 20-30 degrees off the vertical by main strength alone; I didn’t even have a particularly good stance.
I called to Scritch. I whistled and pleaded. I desperately hoped she would crawl out from under the crushing weight, to safety, so that I could set it back down.
But Scritch did not appear.
For all I knew, she needed veterinary help. Time might be of the essence. If someone else had been present, we could have unloaded the shelves, or better yet shooed Scritch out from under the bottom while I held the thing up.
But my wife wasn’t home. My cell phone was out of reach.
I waited. Maybe Scritch would squeeze out after all, or Lisa would come home.
The unit began to waver and shift, just a little, as I struggled to keep as much of its weight as possible balanced on the edge, without letting it tip back and crush my little friend. Or maybe it was false sensation; I was beginning to get tired as the adrenaline kick wore off.
Still nothing else fell off the shelves.
My friends, you would not have wanted to be me just then. I can’t describe how scared I was for this little ball of feathers we’d raised, how guilty I felt thinking of that tiny trusting eye, how wretchedly I didn’t want to be there, how rapidly I was running out of endurance. My arms were starting to hurt.
If I let the bookcase fall, would it lose books from the shelves, change its balance, and rock back? Would it pitch into the table or the windowsill and make the bottom skid over Scritch? If I held it and waited for help, how long before it slipped? So far, she might even be okay, but what now?
There come times in our lives when no more preparation can be done; when one still doesn’t know what’s right, or safe, but options are disappearing.
I threw the bookcase down.
Away from the wall, clear of where I hoped Scritch was, full-length into the bird room, with all the control I could manage. I tried to anchor the bottom of the thing and keep it from kicking back toward Scritch, while its weight changed dynamically as things fell off. Down came books, comics, a sheet of plate glass, a razor knife from the art supplies, some D batteries, two glass jars filled with pennies. All this stuff thundered to the floor.
The tremendous noise shook the room. The cockatiels, poor things, took to the air and beat in frantic circles.
And Scritch crawled out from under the angled bottom of the bookcase to see what all the fuss was about.
Oh my.
So I picked her up and held her trembling body cupped in my trembling hands. Wading across piles of paperbacks, pennies, and dust, I carried her to her safe cage with the infinite care with which we handle that which was thought lost to us when it is unexpectedly returned.
Scritch was exhausted, held one wing away from her body, and had trouble using one leg. I sat with her until Lisa came home, and checked on her several times through the night.
You’ll be pleased to know that she was at the vet when they opened in the morning and has a clean bill of health. :> Lisa is picking her up tonight and they’ll be home in a few minutes.
The bookcase is wrecked, some of the shelves tore out of their screws. But that’s okay; it and its mate are going away. It’s evident I have some more birdproofing to do in that room.
But there is one more thing to relate.
Emotionally and physically drained, the last thing I wanted to do last night was clean up – but there was that tremendous mess. I cleaned it up alone – only room for one person in that corner. I brought in the trash bag, packed up the comics, picked up the pennies, piled up the books, and prepared to vacuum up dust and paper fragments.
At the bottom of the pile, as I was finishing at last, I picked up yet another little torn piece of paper. As I turned toward the trash can, a familiar silhouette caught my eye. One we all remember. Two long rectangles.
Twin towers.
“World Trade Center Observation Deck,” read the ticket from long ago, indeed, from another world. A time before an infinitely greater fall.
On the back was printed simply, “All packages subject to inspection.”
Kneeling in the dust, I stared at it for a long time.
I saved the ticket.
Sailboat