We all know dogs are man's best friend, but sometimes man can be pretty good for dogs too. For example, one Canadian man saved his dog from a cougar attack by straight up punching the cougar in the face. Yeah, for real. What have you done for your dog lately?
CBC News reports, 31-year-old William Gibb of Red Deer, Alberta, Canada brought his two dogs with him while he met a friend for coffee at a Tim Hortons on Dec. 26. He let his two dogs, Sasha and Mongo, out for a short run in the parking lot. But seconds later, he heard Sasha, his five-year-old 80-pound female Husky, yelping, according to the Canadian Press.
"She [Sasha] was crying out in pain and distress so I went running," Gibb told CBC News. "And I saw something wrapped around her so I ran up and punched it in the side of the head." What was that "something wrapped around her"? A cougar that had come from the nearby woods and pounced on the dog.
Gibb started charging into the woods towards the cougar that he had just punched, but then he saw his poor Sasha, whimpering and bleeding on the ground. "I was swinging but I looked back and I saw that Sasha was on the ground kind of twitching," Gibb said.
He went back to the dog and tried to pick her up, but the shocked dog, "thinking I was the cougar," started biting Gibb instead—right when the cougar came charging from the woods yet again.
With Sasha biting his left hand, Gibb "was trying to keep the cougar at bay with my right, and it was pawing at me and I was throwing punches at it."
Fortunately, the dog soon let go of her owner and ran to safety. But, unfortunately for Gibb, the cougar didn't leave; instead, the cougar focused on Mongo, Gibb's other dog.
Gibb got between his dog Mongo and the wild animal then "started swinging and screaming at it, and called for my brother and friend to come give a hand," he explained. Protecting his pups, Gibb grabbed "the closest, biggest stick that I could find and I ran back into the trees to go fight the cougar."
Clearly, the dude was ready to rumble some more but, by then, his two dogs were safe and the cougar had ran off back into the woods.
Gibb took Sasha to the vet. While the dog is fine now, she had two serious cuts on her chests, four puncture wounds on her neck, and a number of additional cuts and scrapes, according to the Canadian Press. Jordan Bremmekamp, the vet who treated Sasha, told CBC News, "I had to sew up some of her wounds. They tore into her muscle."
Sgt. Jack Poitras of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) said, "I was surprised to hear that the owner took the quick action and it's probably what saved the dog's life in this case."
Gibb was stuck with some deep claw cuts and bruises on his arms, but at least he's still got his dogs.
"I wouldn't recommend everybody wrassle with a cougar," Poitras said, "but in this case it worked for the best."
