Noozhawk, a local news outlet in Santa Barbara, CA is reporting on an absolutely insane mountain lion encounter that happened last week. Check out the full article here. Keep reading for my less-than-journalistic approach to this absolutely insane story that has made me even more afraid of mountain lions.
The story goes that Ted Adams, a homeowner in Painted Caves, CA, noticed that his visiting sister’s dog, named Buddy, was barking downstairs. Ted’s sister, named Lee, went to investigate why Buddy was barking, but couldn’t find any reason. She returned upstairs.
Then they heard a loud crash. They all ran downstairs to find a gaping hole in the home’s French doors. They feared the worst.
From Noozhawk:
“Right about that minute, we heard a tremendous crash,” Adams said, adding that he, his wife, Tracy, and Larsen all rushed downstairs.
“The French door down there was just completely smashed open, and there’s a gaping hole there,” Adams told Noozhawk. “We figured that the lion had come in, grabbed the dog, and left.”
However, they looked down the hall into a bedroom, where Adams recalled seeing “just the chunkiest lion” in there.
“Unbelievable, unreal situation,” he said. “It was trying to get out, it was bouncing off the walls. It hit the window with the dog in its mouth.”
That’s when Tracy, Ted’s wife, grabbed a can of bear spray she had stored in a nearby room. She unleashed a literal can of whoopass on the cat. It eventually dropped the dog, and ran back out of the home. Buddy survived the attack, but had to undergo a number of surgeries and procedures to treat his wounds.
Okay, here’s the part of the blog where I get to vent about my fear of mountain lions. First off, how is it just accepted that people live in the same environments as huge predatory cats? I know mountain lion attacks on humans are pretty rare, but I literally don’t think there’s an animal I’m more afraid of that lives in North America.
Second, mountain lions are just charging through glass doors now? What the actual f*ck. I’ve seen plenty of videos of dogs barking at mountain lions from inside homes, and I never once thought that the lion would charge through the glass to attack. Unbelievable.
I know I’m being dramatic here, but there’s something about mountain lions that just freaks me the hell out. Glad everybody was okay in this situation, but I think I would have to move out of that damn house if something like this ever happened to me…
Featured Image Credit: Priscilla Du Preez on Unsplash
