Cooper River Trail

At approximately 1:30pm on Nov. 9, my sister Melissa and I were on a hike with my Labrador Blue on Cooper River Trail headed towards Cooper Lake. About a mile from the lake, we turned a bend in the trail and came face-to-face with a cougar. Blue was on leash. The cat proceeded to attack Blue. Using our knowledge base my sister and I made ourselves big, loud (screaming) and tried to back away slowly while throwing branches at the cat. It worked, the cat released Blue and ran away. It looks like Blue will make a full recovery.

We are lucky it ended as well as it did, but also realize we were part of this outcome because we knew what to do. This included reporting the incident to Dept. of Fish and Wildlife. While cougar attacks are rare, they do happen. Please use this as an opportunity to educate yourself on how to prevent and address wildlife attacks. I've included a website for more information as part of this post. http://westernwildlife.org.