It was already dark on Saturday evening and Austin had little time to react when he discovered the reason for Angel’s strange behaviour. The boy spotted what he first thought was a strange dog emerge from the shadows. Just two metres away, the cat charged at him.
“He was like: Aw, crap, it’s a cougar.”
But Angel was ready – the young dog leapt at the hungry cougar and “took the whack,” Mr. Forman said. The boy escaped inside his home while the two animals battled for several minutes. “The cougar was latched onto her head, you could hear both the dog and the cougar screaming. Then it went silent.”
…
“We brought it out on the snow, the dog was laying there lifeless,” he said. As the family gathered, consoling Austin, the dog suddenly sprang up. “She coughed a bit of blood, she started wagging her tail, snuggled up to Austin and licked him.”
OK, so let me be sure I have the picture clear in my mind . . . Austin is hauling firewood, dog whines, cougar leaps, cougar and dog fight, and a RCMP constable – who, thank goodness was only a minute or so away – rides in to shoot the cougar and save the day.
Is this THE RCMP? (Ladies, you know what I mean.) And is this Constable (and what a lovely name he has! Chad Gravelle! Both manly and gracious!) well-built and very fit? Smelling perhaps of pine and fresh air? Wearing a nifty red uniform with an incredibly cool hat? Boots? Trousers poofed out slightly at the sides above the knee?
Surely the only missing piece is Austin’s comely older sister (note, that the 11 year old is the youngest of 5,) emerging to express her blushing gratitude to the dashing mountie. Apparently that was left out in the editing.
You’d be surprised what comes out when yer scared.
Wonderful dog, wonderful story.
One of my pups saved me from stepping in some rabbit poop. Couldn’t tell which one it was until they breathed on me.
Apart from Ontario and Quebec, which have their own provincial police force, the mounties contract to supply policing to any municipality too small to have a force of their own. They wear their dress scarlets with the sch!tcatcher britches only on ceremonial occasions. If there’s a funeral with an official RCMP delegation, for instance, they’d show up in their scarlets.
In Canada international airports are under federal jurisdiction, and the Mounties police them, too. In some airports they keep one Mountie in scarlets to amuse the tourists, but most wear an ordinary cop uniform.
Boston Bar isn’t all that far from here, but it’s an old goldrush town up the Fraser canyon. The canyon is where the cascades meet the couast mountain range, so there’s very little flat land. The actual ‘Boston Bar’ is a gravel sandbar in the river where gold could be panned.
Some in the RCMP are women, I’ve got the speeding tickets to prove it. I have a tendency to mix up my mphs and kphs. Do love a girl in a campaign hat! Although I guess technically it’s a Stetson with four bashes.
