January 9, 2002 Man wrestles cougar in yard.

Mountain lion grabs family terrier in Rockrimmon

Michael Hurd has 25 stitches and a bloodied shirt as proof of his successful rescue of the family dog from a mountain lion. "I guess it's true, about moving into their habitat and having to deal with it now," said Jean Hurd, Michael's wife.

By Tom Ragan The Gazette

Not many people can say they've wrestled with a mountain lion and won. Mike Hurd can. The 46-year-old contractor rescued the family dog Monday night from the jaws of a cougar that wandered into his Rockrimmon neighborhood in northwest Colorado Springs. He's got 25 stitches to prove it - in and around both ears. If you want to see the bloodied shirt, he's got that too. But most of all he's got the unusual tale, the Rocky Mountain version of Crocodile Dundee. On Tuesday he stood in the back yard and told it, re-enacting parts when warranted. He said it all started shortly before 8:30 p.m., when his 6-year-old son let out "this blood-curdling scream" that "some big animal" was trying to eat Baxter, the family's 2-year-old black Scottish Terrier. Hurd reacted on instinct. He bolted out the kitchen door without stopping to think, although in the back of his mind he was thinking it was probably a German shepherd or a coyote. The thought of a mountain lion never entered his head. Until, that is, he jumped on its back and ended up staring straight into its eyes in what would have been an awkward, almost comical embrace if he hadn't been so scared. "I had one of his paws in one hand and my other arm was wrapped around his back," said Hurd, who's 160 pounds and 5 feet 9 inches tall, just a tad bigger than the mountain lion. For two minutes, Hurd held onto the mountain lion for dear life. His dear life. Baxter had managed to escape. The mountain lion growled at him. Hurd growled back. "But that wasn't what scared me at the time," Hurd said. "What scared me was how I was going to deal with him after I let him go." He yelled for his wife to get the BB gun. She came back and laid it at his side. If the BB gun didn't work, there was always the pooper scooper as a last resort, he said. Then came the moment of truth. Would it attack him once he let it go? Hurd lucked out. The lion just wandered back into the scrub oak where it came from. "It was almost as if he was annoyed," Hurd said. Hurd can't remember when the lion caught him with his claws. Or whether it might have actually been his teeth. "He must have gotten me sometime between the time I left the porch and landed on his back," Hurd said. The Division of Wildlife says mountain lions are common in the Rockrimmon area, a neighborhood full of deer and dogs, the types of animals mountain lions love to eat. This mountain lion, in particular, must have been an "inexperienced hunter" because it didn't kill Baxter right away, the DOW told Hurd. Jean Hurd, Michael's wife, said she wishes the mountain lion never came around. Their children are terrified and will no longer be able to play near the scrub oak, she said. "If I had known it was a mountain lion, and it had stared right at me with Baxter in its mouth, I probably would have said, 'Bye, Baxter,'" Hurd said. "I just hope he doesn't come around again."



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