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Cougar in bedroom kills dog.
IDLEDALE, Colorado (AP) — A mountain lion crept through an open door into a house outside Denver, snatched a Labrador retriever from a bedroom where two people were sleeping and left the dog’s dead body outside, wildlife managers said Tuesday.
Jacquie and Mack Anderson say they woke up to find a mountain lion in their bedroom outside Denver.
No one else was hurt in the home about 14 miles southwest of Denver.
Wildlife officials later trapped the 130-pound male cat using the dog’s body as bait and fatally shot it.
Colorado Division of Wildlife spokesman Tyler Baskfield said the cat entered the house through open French doors early Monday and fled with the Labrador after the owners woke up.
“The people got up and looked around and saw the mountain lion’s tail leaving the house,” Baskfield said.
Mack and Jacquie Anderson told Denver television stations that their 12-year-old Labrador named Scout was killed by the lion. Another dog sleeping in the room wasn’t harmed.
Jacquie Anderson said they were awakened by a commotion in the room at around 4:30 a.m. and, when she got up to check what was happening, she realized the big cat was in the bedroom. She exclaimed that there was a mountain lion in the room and she believes that led it to run out the open doors with Scout in its mouth. The dog weighed 72 pounds.
The couple said the dogs didn’t bark to warn them of the mountain lion.
The owners agreed to use the dog’s body for bait. Baskfield said mountain lions often stash their kills and return for them later.
Although wild animals ranging from raccoons to bears might amble in through open doors and windows, “it is kind of strange for a large predator like that to come that close to the house,” Baskfield said.
Colorado has an estimated 3,000 to 7,000 mountain lions.
Editor’s note: this story was raised at a dinner amongst friends and prompted a quick controversy: Those siding with the big cat and those of the home owners.
via illinois cougar watch and cnn
Maureen Adams
August 13th, 2008 at 7:08 pm
Living here in Colorado as I do, I have very passionate feelings about wildlife and humans co-existing. I feel so very sorry for the family who lost their precious dog, but I have said before and will say again that when you live in an area where animals such as mountain lions, cougars, bears, coyotes, etc. live, you MUST NOT leave your windows and doors OPEN. It’s just common sense. When you live amid wild animals, you must never grow complacent!
Leighs last blog post..*Sigh*
August 13th, 2008 at 8:22 pm
leigh, right! our best friends just moved away from us in chicago to bend oregon. we spent 10 days with them recently. every night the coyotes howled. animal tracks everywhere! they have big picture windows and tracy has a bird sculpture near the window. almost every day a small bird would be found dead on the deck and a hawk now and then would bonk the window. tracy better move that sculpture!