SEQUIM — A chilling run-in with a hungry cougar that resulted in the death of one pet dog and the severe injury of another has a young couple taking extra precautions before venturing outdoors.
On Monday, Kalinin Tenneson noticed that she and her husband Justin’s black lab, Mary, was missing.
By early Tuesday morning, Mary hadn’t shown up, so Kalinin went for a walk with the couple’s other dog, Snippy, to look for her.
While walking through some brush near the couple’s five acres on the 2000 block of Hooker Road, about six miles from the center of Sequim, Snippy vanished.
“Something reached out and grabbed her. She was screaming and yipping and I just froze,” Kalinin said.
“I didn’t hear anything or smell anything. The whole time our dog was being attacked I could only hear her.
“It was sudden, so fast I didn’t even see it.”
Hearing the commotion, Justin ran into the yard with a shotgun and shot into the air.
The report startled Snippy’s attacker, allowing the dog to run away.
Remains found
Later, with the help of Justin’s father, Mike, the remains of Mary were found in the yard, partly buried.
The family began to suspect that the attacker was a cougar.
Apparently, Kalinin and Snippy had passed by the cougar’s meal.
“I think that’s why it was being that way,” Justin said.
Justin went into the brush to look around.
The cougar was close, really close, and then it bounded away.
“It was really quiet though,” Justin said.
“I could barely hear it, but it was close, like somebody whispering to you.”
Snippy was treated by a veterinarian and received stitches and a antibiotic prescription.
“I call her my killer attack dog. She’s definitely protective of me,” Kalinin said.
Trap set
Later, Justin and Mike set a trap to lure the cougar in.
At night the cat reappeared and Justin and Mike met it with a hail of buckshot and slugs.
It was late, too dark to venture into the brush to look for a wounded mountain lion, so they waited until dawn to track it.
After a day of searching, late in the afternoon, Mike saw a large object he mistook for a log.
The cougar lay dead, all 6 feet 7 inches of him from nose to the end of his tail.