We had this HUGE discussion in school about firefighting, and the first words my friend (he's from another country) said about Firefighters is that they put out fires and rescue animals from high places.
Has your company gone to rescue a cat, or maybe even a dog, from a high point?
That's not within the parameters of the discussion, because it's just a little difficult to drive fire apparatus through floodwaters to rescue the cat.
Then there's the little problem of the resources being tied up rescuing people who are trapped by the flood, since human life is the priority in that situation - and every other situation.
Ben, the question was, "Have you ever seen the skeleton of a cat in a tree?" My answer said, yes - during RECOVERY. There was no active rescue at that point; the floods were over and we were doing recovery work.