Here is a great story about 'man's (people's) best friend' !
Im sure many of you saw it on the news last night but I still think it was worth posting here...
Too bad for the cougar, but here is a good brave dog.
http://timestranscript.canadaeast.co...article/908715
Family dog saves boy from cougar
Published Monday January 4th, 2010
11-year-old boy was outside collecting firewood when wild animal charged
BOSTON BAR, B.C. - The way Lloyd Forman sees it, his 11-year-old grandson was saved by an Angel.
That's the golden retriever who protected young Austin from a charging cougar during a bloody, against-all-odds confrontation Saturday in the tiny British Columbia community of Boston Bar, about 200 kilometres northeast of Vancouver.
"The cougar came (from) about five feet away and made a big jump (at Austin)," Forman said yesterday in an interview.
"The dog jumped in between and took on the cougar."
Austin was in his family's backyard collecting firewood with his dog when the cougar appeared.
The cougar charged toward the boy, but Angel stepped in and fought off the large cat while other family members frantically called for help.
Forman, 72, was sitting down to a bowl of homemade borscht soup when the telephone rang. It was the boy's mother.
"They phoned here; the cougar was eating the dog alive, they figured. I said, 'Phone 911,'" Forman recalled. "Fortunately, he (the nearest RCMP officer) was a minute away."
When the officer arrived, the cougar had Angel under the porch with its teeth around the dog's neck. The Mountie fired several shots, killing the cougar.
The dog was injured, but is expected to recover. Austin was unhurt.
"He's doing pretty good -- we're very fortunate, the dog's injured and that's it," said Forman. "It's a pretty traumatic experience. Of course, they're all pretty freaked out."
Sgt. Peter Thiessen of the RCMP said there's no question Austin's encounter with the cougar would have been a lot worse had it not been for his dog.
"The boy was in severe risk," said Thiessen.
"That cougar was advancing aggressively to both of them, and the dog intervened and got between the animal and the young child and the risk was extremely high."
Thiessen said conservation officials will look into what happened and why the cougar came so close to people.
He said it's uncommon -- but not unheard of -- for cougars to go after people.
"We have seen cougar attacks in the lower part of British Columbia," he said. "It's not something that's common, but it is something that has occurred."