BOULDER COUNTY, Colo. — A man in Boulder County is grateful his dog is alive after a close call with what he believes was a mountain lion. The incident happened last week northwest of Boulder on Fourmile Canyon Drive.
Jake Dirnberger, a coffee shop manager in Boulder, has lived just outside of the city for about a year and a half. He said he has seen his fair share of wildlife but what happened last Thursday was unexpected.
"I’ve seen a bear twice, a bobcat once. I’ve seen a few foxes and I guess I’ve seen a mountain lion now," he said.
Dirnberger took his 6-year-old French bulldog, Snork, out to the bathroom last Thursday morning. He was enjoying his morning coffee when he heard a noise around the corner.
"I heard like kind of a scuffle or something and then I heard him crying whimpering or something," he said. "A mountain lion was there with my dog, like in its mouth basically."
Dirnberger said he and his neighbor yelled at the mountain lion and eventually threw his cup of coffee at it. The coffee shop manager said he saved his dog with a cup of joe.
"I sacrificed my precious morning coffee," he said while laughing. "I don't know if that's what made the mountain lion drop Snork or the combination of me and another person yelling at it, but it eventually dropped him and ran off."
Snork ran inside. He was bleeding and had some wounds on his face, but was very much alive.
"I was very relieved that he could run at all," Dirnberger said. "No bones were broken or anything. It was just like damage on his face."
Snork is on antibiotics but expected to make a full recovery. Dirnberger said he did not alert any authorities after it happened. He was just grateful the encounter was merely a close call.
"We're all appreciative more appreciative of Snork being in our lives and not a pile of bones on a hill," he said.
A Colorado Parks and Wildlife (CPW) spokesperson said there are usually a lot of mountain lion sightings this time of year because there is snow in the mountains so deer and elk seek lower ground and the mountain lions follow them.
Even if they are common in area's like Fourmile Canyon, CPW wants people to report them any time they have an encounter.
They urge anyone to use whatever they can to protect themselves from a mountain lion like rocks, sticks or anything else you can grab. While coffee is not a conventional tool, they said if it works, then use it.