You never know what kind of animals will come to visit your home.
Recently, a family was shocked to learn of the existence of the creature that had been hiding under their house, after their pet dog made quite the discovery.
A pet dog at a Boulder, Colorado home began alerting owners that something was wrong Sunday morning.
According to a press release from Colorado Parks and Wildlife, he led them to their backyard patio.
The owners checked to see what it was, thinking a raccoon had crept under the bridge.
They quickly discovered that it was not a raccoon, but a much larger and potentially dangerous animal: a cougar.
The cougar, a sub-adult male weighing about 115 to 120 pounds, had settled comfortably into the one-foot clearance below their deck.
They immediately contacted Colorado Parks and Wildlife, which arrived on the scene.
Cougars aren’t exactly a rare sighting in the area — CPW says they had 17 other reports of cougars in the area recently — but the predators can pose a danger to humans and pets.
“Before that in the last two weeks we had several pets brought into town by a sub-adult lion, likely siblings in town,” said CPW Wildlife Officer Tyler Asnicar.
Claiming that cougars can end up in town after following their prey base and saying that the cougar was “in town looking for something to eat.”
Fortunately, their pet dog discovered the big cat under their house before anything happened, and the puma was safely and humanely removed from the area.
Given the circumstances, the CPW decided to reassure and move the mountain lion from the family home.
“It’s not a good situation to have a big predator like that near so many people,” Asnicar said.
“It’s better for the people and the cat to try to move it. Relocation was our best approach in this case.”
