Clearly the man who punched a kangaroo in the head has set a trend, as this time a man walloped a cougar away from his dog.
CBC reports that a Canadian man, Will Gibb, smacked a crazed cougar in the head, after it locked its jaws around his pet husky.
The cougar-puncher didn’t have much time to think before he launched at the frightening beast and whacked it in the head.
He said:
I wasn’t really analysing it too much at the time.
All that was going through my mind is that I had to protect my dog.
It was just very instinctual. My dogs are like my children.
Will explained that he was out on Boxing Day, meeting a friend for coffee at the Whitecourt Tim Hortons, when the startling encounter took place.
He unleashed his two dogs, Sasha and Mongo for a run in the carpark when he heard Sasha crying for help.
It was then that the dog-rescuer ran to her aid, when he saw the cougar chomping down on his beloved pet.
He recalled:
She (Sasha) was crying out in pain and distress so I went running.
And I saw something wrapped around her so I ran up and punched it in the side of the head.
At that point I realised it was a cougar.
Will said he legged it into the woods in hot pursuit of the wild cat, but turned back to treat wounded Sasha who was lying, bleeding on the floor.
Will said:
I was swinging but I looked back and I saw that Sasha was on the ground kind of twitching.
So I went back and tried to scoop her up with my left arm.
The terrified dog whipped round and started to bite her owner’s hand at the same time as the cougar charged back out of the woods.
Sasha, who was clearly confused, took a few bites out of Will’s hand, which he thinks was because the dog was dazed and mistook him for the cougar.
The bizarre situation took a scary turn as Will had to fight off the angry cat for a second time, while trying to protect his pet.
He remembered:
She was fighting for her life, and I was trying to keep the cougar at bay with my right, and it was pawing at me and I was throwing punches at it.
Well that was an unexpected situation to encounter when going for a Christmas coffee.
Don’t think the cougar will pick on anything twice its size for a while…