PORT ANGELES – Dane Bradow, 8, was playing in his driveway with brothers Bo, 6, and Ty, 3, on Saturday when a cougar came out of the wooded area near the house, and brushed a paw against him – not injuring him, but scaring the three boys.
When Dane began screaming in terror, his mother, Marlene, looked out from the second-story window and spotted the cougar and called 9-1-1, then summoned the boys indoors.
“He was moving really slow, then fast, really slow then fast,” Dane said of the cougar’s approach to him.
“God really protected him,” his mother said.
“He wasn’t hurt at all, so God must have been looking out for him.”
Despite the commotion, the cougar continued to roam around the driveway on the 700 block of West Seventh Street for about 5 more minutes, she said.
Dane had a tear in his shirt about the size of the tip on his little finger, but other than that, the animal left no other evidence.
The confrontation occurred about 8 p.m.; by 9:40 p.m. police, state Department of Fish and Wildlife officials and a cougar tracking dog were all on scene to find the creature.
During the tracking in the wooded canyon, DFW officer Mitch Messenger at one point spotted the cougar and fired one round at it but missed.
“It was very dark and we weren’t able to see it very well,” Messenger said.
The animal made a brief reappearance before the trackers, and later the dog, Sandy, became very agitated as she caught the cat’s scent.
Sandy is specially trained to track the animals, said Morris Bond, of Sequim who trains dogs for just such occasions.
Sandy was able to track what officials determined to be a young cougar into a patch of especially thick forest area where Messenger and Bond were crawling to follow the dog.
“It felt like I was Briar Rabbit,” Bond said of the challenging brush.
“I had Sandy on a 50-foot leash and I’d let her go for a while and then follow her down and then let her go for a while and then have to follow her for a while.
“That went on for quite a while.”
Bond and Messenger finally stopped chasing the animal by about 11 p.m. Saturday night.
“I don’t think the cougar will be back,” Messenger said.
“Once you get a dog after them and scare them like that – they’re fast learners.
“It won’t be back.”
Nevertheless, he said, anywhere that deer roam is a likely candidate for a place cougars will roam. He urged people to be careful but not panic into suspecting any noise to be a cougar.
Because the incident was in town and near a major street – the U.S. Highway 101 truck bypass – Sandy couldn’t be let loose to hunt.
“We had to keep the dog on a leash, but we were also wanting to confirm if it were hanging around still,” Messenger said.
“We ended up chasing it quite a ways going south bound.
“Judging by the face and the size of the tracks it was a young one – a year or a year-and-a-half old maybe.”
Young cougars sometimes wander toward town to feed on deer that come to the area which may be more docile and easier to catch than other deer.
“It was a young one that was still trying to figure out it’s way in the world,” Messenger said of the cat’s approach to the boys.
After they have left their mothers the felines are learning to fend for themselves and often are testing their strength and hunting skills.
Most older healthy cougars will not approach humans, Messenger said.
Most of them will avoid populated areas unless they are undernourished or injured.
