Hero dog dies trying to save cat
Oct. 18, 2006. 10:57 AM

ELKHART LAKE, Wis. (AP) - After a disabled Wisconsin woman's cat started
a house fire, her specially trained dog came to the rescue, then died
trying unsuccessfully to rescue the cat.

Jamie Hanson said her 13-year-old dog Jesse brought her artificial leg
and a phone she used to call 911.

"She got me outside and then she heard the cat upstairs and she went up
there to get the cat and she wouldn't come back to me," Hanson, 49, said
at a news conference Monday at Aurora Sheboygan Memorial Medical Center,
where she was being treated for her injuries.

She received third-degree arm burns in the fire Sunday night at her home
in Rhine, south of Elkhart Lake. Both pets died.

Hanson, who lost a leg in a car accident three years ago, said she was
on the couch watching television when the cat ran over the back of the
couch.

"And he jumped onto a table that had a candle on it and tipped it over
and lighted the artificial plants on fire," she said.

Hanson said she fell off the couch and was unable to retrieve her
artificial leg from the table, "so my dog got my leg for me and went and
got the phone and brought the phone to me so I could call 911."