Couple Saves Their Chihuahua from Bobcat Attack with This Ideal Technique: ‘It Came So Fast’

Mar. 15, 2025

Chihuahua Larry ‘Fitzy’ Fitzgerald.Photo:12NewsAZ/YouTube

12NewsAZ/YouTube

A Phoenix woman says her Chihuahua “didn’t have a chance” when a bobcat appeared in her backyard and grabbed him — but what she did next may have been the thing that saved the pup’s life.

Shannon Lucas told NBC affiliateKPNXshe was in her backyard of her Ahwatukee Foothills home with her six-pound pup Larry “Fitzy” Fitzgerald on Wednesday, Oct. 16, when the dog was going “potty in the dark.”

That’s when she spotted their unexpected visitor “out of the corner” of her eye. While Fitzy was roughly 20 feet away from her home’s fence, a bobcat came after him. “He squeals very loud. I shriek, like, ‘No!’ " she told KPNX.

“Thankfully he let him go and ran up [to the top of the backyard fence],” she added. “And then he or she sat for a few minutes afterward and it was just watching us.”

Kurt Lucas, Shannon’s husband, then ran out of their home with a “scorpion-killer” broomstick he uses on pests, which he described as “the only thing I had.” He then chased the wild animal to the wall.

“Didn’t really move at first,” he said. “Then I got closer and smacked the tree next to it and it took off again.”

Fitzy survived and only sustained marks on his neck, which his owner said were not too deep. “He was in shock more than anything,” said Shannon, also a mother of two-year-old twins who she now is “scared to let outside” given the unpredictability of the bobcats.

“It came so fast, happened so quickly, like he didn’t have a chance,” Shannon said. “Thankfully I was there.”

The Arizona Game and Fish Department (AZGFD) recommended what Shannon and Kurt did when the bobcat came in contact with Fitzy: staying outside with your pets, making loud noises at the wild animals and hazing the unwanted creatures when they come around.

Per KPNX, the department also recommended staying outside with small pets. “I see people using those air horns — so loud noises, spraying them with water, that usually can do the trick of they’re not going to want to come around,” AZGFD’s Alexandra Flickinger said.

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Per theHumane Society of the United States, if a bobcat doesn’t appear to be scared of humans, “they probably learned to associate people with food (likely because someone has been feeding them) and may exhibit boldness or even approach you.”

source: people.com