Posted on 05/17/2012 4:11:46 PM PDT by SJackson
Wildlife experts frequently remind campers, hunters and hikers what to do should they encounter a mountain lion. Hitting the big cat with a frying pan is probably at the bottom of the list.
Nevertheless, a Chino Valley, Ariz., man grabbed his cast-iron pan — his closest weapon — to fend off a cougar after it attacked his dog earlier this month.
According to The (Prescott, Ariz.) Daily Courier, Brandon Arnold, 24, was camping with his girlfriend, Tessa Gerdes, and seven other friends — including three children — early in the morning on May 4 in the Tonto National Forest when a mountain lion attacked Arnold’s dog, Apollo, a 90-pound lab-pit bull mix.
Arnold’s friend, Donald Jones, grabbed the cougar by the neck thinking it was another camper’s dog, then (wisely) let go once he realized what he had grabbed. The puma high-tailed it into the woods, with Apollo giving chase, so Arnold and Jones gave chase with whatever weapons they could grab; Arnold grabbed a cast-iron frying pan, and Jones grabbed a table.
Arnold reached the animals first, and once he got a clear swing, he took it, smacking the cat in the head.
“The first time I had a clear shot I just swung the pan and hit him right on the head,” Arnold told The Daily Courier. “It was like a cartoon — he just kind of stopped and I hit him again. He got stiff and fell over.”
Arnold walloped the stunned cougar again, knocking it to the ground, then popped it several more times for good measure before another friend shot it a couple times — just to be sure.
The Arizona Game and Fish Department reported Monday that the cougar tested positive for rabies. Luckily, none of the campers were scratched or bitten. Apollo suffered a few wounds, but thankfully had his rabies shots and should be released after a 45-day quarantine.
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Don't mess with the cook.
/johnny
Ping
I live in a sparsely populated area of private properties full of mountain lions, but they don’t get near people here. It could be, that they tend to more likely go after vacationers in the more populated parks and the like. Familiarity, maybe...?
I’ll share some information that I learned in a class over 30 years ago.
When an animal with a large-enough mouth attacks, don’t pull your hand away. Try to jam your hand/fist down the animal’s throat. They let go real fast and run away.
Cat had rabies. Good thing it got panned (and shot) before it could bite.
They could have ran over it with their car just to really, really make sure.........LOL!
Just shows that being armed with most any weapon is better then not being armed.
It would take some nerve to try that with, say, a grizzly bear.
This one was rabid, different circumstance.
The class was aimed at domestic animals. I should have referenced that. :-) Although a cougar is not a domestic animal, its bite is about the size of a large dog.
Good advice, hard to remember. Don’t want to be in the circumstance to take advantage.
Ruh-roh....hopefully the guy didn’t violate the “48-hour frying-pan purchase law”....or the “one-frying-pan-a-month” law.....
It sounds like the guy toting the table didn’t get any licks in.
Mountain lions are cooking now?
Looking forward to the new show “Cooking with Cougars”.
Mountain lion = dangerous
Rabid Mountain Lion = KYA goodbye (unless you have a frying pan)
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