Cougar v. Horse

Suspected cougar attack leaves horse owner shaken
By JOE BELANGER, SUN MEDIA

PARKHILL -- Cheryl Penny can't hold back the tears as she talks about Rainbow, the mare she called "the boss" of the paddock.

And Penny still can't figure out what spooked the 13-year-old standardbred trotter on the night of Oct. 8 so she'd run headfirst into a fence post -- snapping it at the base -- then over an electric fence and another wire fence.

OPP say the animal that attacked Rainbow could have been a cougar because one was spotted by a resident this week near a creek in Parkhill.

"It wasn't her nature to try and get out," said Penny, whose farm backs onto the same creek ravine.

"Something spooked her and chased her. Whether it's true or not it was a cougar, I don't know. I never saw."

Police warned Parkhill residents on Tuesday to be on the lookout for a cougar.

Penny said Rainbow suffered cuts to her head and a wide, deep vertical gash about 30 centimetres long on a front leg.

Penny suspects the head injuries were caused when the horse ran into the fence, but can't explain the long deep gash.

On the morning of Oct. 9, Rainbow was missing from the paddock she shared with a another horse.

Searchers spotted Rainbow standing along the edge of a tree line more than a kilometre away.

While Rainbow wasn't one to try to leave the fenced paddock, she was feisty.

"She was always ornery, reaching out to bite you or kicking," Penny said. "But she was a kind-hearted soul. It was just her personality."

When Penny and partner Bob Rundle went across the pasture to collect Rainbow, they were shocked.

"Her head was all smashed in, she was bleeding from a nostril and there was this long gash, right to the bone," Penny said.

A veterinarian examined Rainbow's injuries and recommended the horse be put down.

"I agreed because I hate to see an animal in distress," Penny said.

Rundle said he's convinced Rainbow was spooked.

"There's no way she'd jump three fences and that cut from shoulder to knee," he said.

"I didn't see a cougar and I can't prove it, but one was spotted not far from here and it was either that or some other wild animal that spooked her."

The veterinarian couldn't be reached for comment.

Middlesex OPP Const. Doug Graham said he issued the warning as a precaution, especially with Halloween a week away.

He urged parents to accompany their children.

"I'm not in a position to say it's not a cougar," Graham said.

"But I can't think of another predator that hunts by itself and is large enough to take down an adult horse. And when (a cougar) is spotted in such close proximity, then the natural assumption is it's a cougar."

There have been dozens of cougar sightings across the London region, including several last summer within the city limits.

But to date there's been no hard evidence, other than a few paw prints.