Pet Safety Blog

An article in our local TV news and local paper reported an incident involving pet doors that turned out to be very scary, but  interesting and informative.  I wanted to share this information because of an article posted March 5, 2010 (Does Doggie Doors Take Away Togetherness?)   Living away from the hassle of busy cities, some choose to live in the suburbs of large cities for peace and quiet.  However, some areas away from large cities may have wild life wandering around looking for food or water…. pets included.  The population of individuals living in these areas most likely do not think about the unusual circumstance that could possibly occur dealing with wild animals. Something unpleasant or undesirable could happen and no one would be prepared of the possible outcome.

A pet family having several dogs installed a pet door for convenience purposes and worked well for everyone concerned.  One day last week two of the dogs were out in the back yard which was fenced, playing around when a young male mountain lion came up to the fenced yard.  The dogs started barking trying to scare the wild animal away, but the mountain lion jumped the fence and started after the two dogs.  The dogs run back through their pet door trying to get away from the lion, but guess what, the lion went in after them.  The woman of the house was in the area that the lion came into and she ran into another room with an additional dog.  No phone was available, so she quickly ran into the room where the lion was distracted by the two dogs, grabbed the phone and went back into the other room closing the door behind her. She telephone her husband and 911.  The husband hurried home and was able to lead his wife and dog out of the house just as the animal control, police… arrived.  The mountain lion was tranquilized and removed, but not before killing one of the dogs, and injuring the other.  After examining the lion, it was euthanized due to extreme malnutrition.  I am not telling you about this terrible experience to scare or to suggest the pet parent into not installing dog doors,  on the contray, but only to inform you that things do happen.  This was of course an isolated occurrence, and an inconceivable situation to encounter, but I thought it would be worthwhile mentioning to understand that sometime things happen in our daily lives that will leave a mark, never to be forgotten.  Be Happy!