If a cougar is eyeing you hungrily and everything else you’ve tried to scare it away has failed, try blasting Metallica.
That’s one Cowichan Valley woman’s advice after an encounter captured on video this week.
Dee Gallant says she was walking her dog Murphy on a logging road outside of Duncan Tuesday evening when she had a feeling she was being watched.
“And I looked over to my right and there was a cougar watching me, and actually coming towards me,” she said.
“So I did what everybody says, you know, make yourself big wave your arms and he kept coming towards me.”
After she yelled “Hey, you stop!” Gallant says the cougar stopped advancing. That’s when she pulled out her phone.
First, she shot video, showing the cat standing watching her from the top of a rise, while she continued talking and yelling at the cougar.
“Bad kitty! Go on, git!” she’s heard saying.
After about 50 seconds with the cougar still staring her down, Gallant changed gears.
“I thought maybe I should try harder to scare him off because he seemed pretty interested in me,” she said.
“So I flipped through my iTunes and found the heaviest Metallica song I could find and held it up and played it and he took off in the bush.”
The track, Don’t Tread On Me, from their 1991 eponymous album may not be the American band’s best-known cut. But Gallant is crediting it for getting her home unharmed.
“I guess he didn’t want to eat anything that leaves a Metallica taste in his mouth,” she joked.
“Metallica saved my life, so yeah thanks Metallica!”
Keith Vass
