WATCH: Owners of cat responsible for shocking Saanich pit bull attack speak out, saying they need to set the record straight about their old and arthritic feline. Tess van Straaten reports.
Sprawled out on a hot summer day, ‘Baby’ hardly looks like a vicious attack cat.
“She’s not a vicious attack cat at all,” Del Thompson says. “But that’s the impression that’s left from the media coverage.”
Del and Betty Jean Thompson can’t believe their 16-year-old house cat — who has arthritis and trouble walking — is making international headlines after she lunged at seven pit bulls out for a walk.
“The cat actually ran towards the dogs and started swiping at my dog’s face,” Javiera Rodriguez says.
Rodriguez’s dog and one of the other owners were injured in the attack.
“I was just shocked that this cat would go after seven dogs,” says Kyla Grover, who was walking the dog the cat attacked. ” I thought it would get scared and run away but it never did.”
The dogs were leashed when they walked by the Thompson’s Gordon Head yard Monday evening.
Betty Jean, who was gardening with Baby at her side, says she was shocked to see so many dogs.
“You could see how a little cat would think someone was going to attack her when you see seven dogs in front of our house,” she says.
The 78-year-old says one of the dogs — Bandida — came onto the boulevard near their property line and she was worried the dogs would try to chase Baby.
“I yelled out, get those dogs out of here I have a cat!” Thompson says. “She pulled the dog back and it reared up and kinda looked like a horse.”
That’s when Baby attacked.
By the time Betty Jean was able to get up, she says Bandida was fighting back.
Cat owner thought pit bull had killed her pet and feared the dogs would rip it apart
“The dog had the cat in her mouth, by the back of the throat, and it looked like our cat was a rag doll,” she says. “It looked like our cat was dead and I thought the dogs were going to rip it apart.”
Fearing the worst, Betty Jean says she tried to intervene by putting her gardening mat in front of the dog’s eyes to break up the fight.
She’s upset the dogs owners’ said she didn’t help.
In the end, Kyla Grover separated the animals and she and Bandida were the only ones hurt.
The Thompsons, who paid the vet bill, admit Baby’s protective but say in 16 years there have only been one or two incidents.
“I have seen her just nip a little bit at a dog’s rear foot,” Betty Jean says. “But nothing ever like this.”
They say Baby sleeps most of the time, and that’s all she did when our cameras were there to see her.
“Like most cats she doesn’t do a lot exciting, really.”
Except for this strange story, which will have pit bulls staying away from her kitty corner.
