Cat takes a giant leap after stay atop pole

Erica D. Johnson and Mary Manning

Thursday, Sept. 19, 2002 | 11:18 a.m.

A cat named Doggie was dubbed "Rocky the Flying Squirrel" by neighbors after jumping from the top of a 40-foot electric pole to the ground Tuesday during a rescue attempt by Nevada Power Co. workers.

The 12-year-old cat made the flying leap just before noon in front of an audience of neighbors and television cameras on Parsifal Place near U.S. 95 and Jones Boulevard after spending nearly two days atop the pole.

A Nevada Power crew had turned off power to the pole -- and 50 neighbors -- and were trying to reach Doggie using a bucket truck when the feline bolted from the transformer to a neighbor's back yard below.

"She was at least four stories up," said Richard Kohl, a neighbor who had called animal control. "She hit the ground with a thud and took off on a dead run."

An hour after the rescue, owner Loren Nelson found her, little worse for the wear.

"I couldn't believe it," he said. "She lit and split and ran."

By Wednesday night Doggie had no sign of sore paws, but she was famous. Her feat was filmed by a local television news crew and broadcast nationally on CNN.

Neighbors say the feline made her way up the wooden pole Sunday evening after a dog got loose and scared her.

Nelson's next-door neighbor Onofre Polanco and her 16-year-old daughter, Mayra, said they witnessed the cat race up the pole, but thought she'd eventually come down. When they realized Doggie was still on the power pole two days later, they began to worry.

"She was up there with no food and water for so long," Onofre Polanco said.

Nelson didn't realize his cat was missing until he got home from work at 4 a.m. Tuesday. She's been an outdoor cat all her life, Nelson said, so her absence wasn't immediately noticeable.

"She has never been inside the house," he said.

He couldn't see her, but Nelson knew she was near.

"I heard her meowing and I looked and looked and couldn't find her."

Once he found her atop the pole, neighbors started gathering to help.

Richard Kohl, who lives behind Nelson, called animal control officers, and they advised them to leave the cat alone.

"The cat isn't very friendly with anyone in the neighborhood," said Kohl, who has lived in the neighborhood for nearly 30 years. "But it does spend a lot of time in my back yard."

The fire department said it couldn't send a crew either.

Neighbors called a local television station, which sent a camera crew. A little while later, Nevada Power workers arrived.

While the company rarely responds to calls of animals stuck on power lines, the crowd of neighbors Doggie had drawn made for a potentially dangerous situation, spokesman Edgar Patino said.

Patino said rescues are usually unnecessary, as animals typically jump from lines before workers can rescue them. Not only that, rescues can be dangerous, he said.

"Sometimes the cats will actually die" during the rescue, Patino said. "They're probably safer on their own." But after more than 40 hours atop the structure, it appeared Doggie wasn't budging.

Only when workers got close enough to see her eyes did Doggie make her move.

Neighbor Babe Angelo, who lost power for about 20 minutes during the attempted rescue, says he wasn't Doggie's biggest fan, but he was glad for the rescue.

"I hate cats," he said. "But the cat was squealing and I couldn't stand to watch an animal suffer like that."