Watch: Man Punches Cougar In Face To Save Pet Dog

By R. Siva Kumar - 12 Jul '15 15:39PM

Now here's a strange hero that punched a cat in the face to save his dog.

What's the big deal, you might ask. Well, the cat was a cougar.

Shawn Hanson, the Langford man who had a violent exchange with a powerful cougar to save his pet Dachshund is getting global attention, according to ctvnews

In Vancouver Island, when a cougar caught Shawn Hanson's pet dog, Bailey, he punched the cat on its face.

He had gone on a fishing and camping trip near Ucluelet on Vancouver Island. When he was cleaning several salmon, Hanson glimpsed his dog being dragged off into the bush. "Out of the corner of my eye, I see a little flash. I look down and it's a small cougar dragging my dog off into the bushes," he told CTV Vancouver Island.

"I just kept pushing the bushes so I could see and dropped down into a muddy, dry creek," he said. "I was able to spring out of the mud and was screaming at it the whole time," according to inquisitor.

He chased the cougar, hung on to its rear and grabbed Bailey with his free hand, yet the cougar wouldn't let go of his dog.

"I reached back and punched it in the face," he said.

It stunned the cougar so much that it released the dog, letting Bailey snatch it away.

"I was expecting it to start swatting at me and come at me, but I think it was pretty stunned to be hit," said Hanson.

The dog had many small puncture wounds all over his body, yet seemed unharmed. Shawn then handed over Bailey to a friend near the bush and grabbed his rifle from his truck, went after the cougar, and fired a warning shot.

The cougar began to run towards him.

"It just kept staring at me," said Shawn. "I raised the rifle and waited a second. It took two more steps and I had to put the cougar down. It was pretty much over at that point."

That's when Hanson had to call conservation officers. They said that they had seen the cougar at a number of spots near houses, and were tracking it down, when they heard Shawn shooting it.

Brittany Mueller, a conservation officer with the Central Island Zone of Vancouver Island, said that charges will not be laid. "Every person has the right to protect their property and personal safety and in this case the cougar was failing to retreat," said Mueller.

The trick is to "back away slowly, maintaining eye contact as well as speaking loudly to scare off the animal," according to ctv.