A Scottish terrier is lucky to be alive after an encounter with a cougar last weekend outside a home located southwest of Calgary.
Owner Jakub Strasser says he was heading home from work around 8 p.m. Sunday with his two dogs, including five-year-old terrier named Wednesday.
“Right, 30 seconds after, I hear a howling of a dog or a cougar or something then I ran out and saw the commotion right up by the gate,” says Strasser.
“Like right inside our gate on our property. My hunting dog came with me,” he added.
That’s when he says he and the other dog saw Wednesday in the grips of a cougar.
“If I would have hesitated a bit or grabbed a gun or something, it would have been over. Two seconds longer I think it was just about to carry her off,” says Strasser.
Strasser says Wednesday was left with scratches all over her body, including her neck and head. She also needed stitches under one of her legs.
Strasser says the cat came back later that night.
“It was like a horror movie,” says Strasser. “We were standing next to our camera system looking on the screen and I said, ‘Oh, we maybe have it on the camera,’ and pointed at it and we looked at it and the cougar was right back at the gate going back and forth.”
The attack comes about two weeks after a cougar killed a house cat at a home southwest of Calgary.
Reported sightings of a juvenile cougar in Fish Creek Provincial Park have been circulating all over social media. Those sightings have triggered a warning from the province impacting the west end of the park until further notice.
“There hasn’t been any specific conflict with people, more or less just sightings within some of these heavily-developed areas. Vast green spaces within the city is pretty good cover for cougars,” says Sgt. Scott Kallweit with Alberta Fish & Wildlife.
The province says to avoid any unwanted or surprise encounter with a cougar to travel in a group and make lots of noise, be aware of your surroundings, and keep pets on a leash.