'I could feel the bones crushing': Cyclists valiantly fight off cougar that had their friend down for the count



A group of seasoned female cyclists were ripping through the forested Tokul Creek trail northeast of Fall City, Washington, when they came across a pair of cougars. The female cat took off running. The young male cougar, however, stuck around for a fight and a feast.

Owing to the perseverance and grit of the five cyclists — all in their 50s and 60s — the cougar ultimately lost the fight and became a feast for worms.

KUOW-FM reported that the cyclists met at the Tokul Creek trail on Feb. 17, then ventured some 19 miles in before encountering the cats. The group comprised Keri Bergere, 60; Annie Bilotta, 64; Auna Tietz, 59; Tisch Williams, 59; and Erica Wolf, 51.

The cats burst from the brush, dividing the riding team.

Tietz shouted, "Cougar! Cougar!"

The yelling was apparently enough to prompt the first cat to flee the scene, but not the other. The male lion, evidently unfazed, lunged at Bergere.

"Looking to my right, I saw the cougar's face," Bergere told KUOW. "It was just a split second, and he tackled me off my bike."

The cougar pulled the rider into the ditch that runs alongside the trail and clamped down on her jaw.

"I thought my teeth were coming loose, and I was gonna swallow my teeth," Bergere recalled. "I could feel the bones crushing, and I could feel it tearing back."

The beast, which the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife indicated was roughly a 1-year-old 75-pound cougar, had Bergere pinned and down for the count.

"I felt like it was suffocating me," said Bergere. "I could taste the blood in my mouth."

As the cyclist breathed what could have been her last, she reportedly heard the roar of her fellow riders and some choice language.

"These ladies are not big, and they were killing this cougar," said Bergere. "They were not going to let it get me."

"I immediately tried to choke the cougar, which was like trying to choke a rock," Bilotta told KING-TV. "Then, Erica and Tisch come over with sticks and a rock and we're hand-to-hand combat battling this thing."

While the riders thwacked at the beast with rocks, sticks, and an almost useless 2-inch knife, Bergere desperately attempted to unhinge its jaw, stabbing her fingers into its eyes, nostrils, and mouth.

Bilotta reportedly joined Bergere in digging into the cougar's mouth while Tietz yanked on the beast's leg.

"The cougar had his claws pretty much around her, in attack mode," Tietz told KUOW. "Like, 'I will have my prey now, and within a couple minutes I will eat her.'"

Looking to adopt the "most drastic measure," Tietz found a 25-pound melon-sized rock. She hoisted it between her legs about a foot off the ground, got the thumbs-up from Bergere, whose head was just next to the cougar's, then dropped the rock. Once was not enough, so Tietz dropped it on the cougar another four or five times.

This drastic measure was not, however, enough.

"I was sitting down, and I actually said, 'I can't do this any more,'" said Tietz. "But then I saw all the other girls doing their thing and helping, and I of course regained strength, and I saw, 'Okay, I can do this.'"

The riders refused to relent, and their fighting paid off: After fifteen minutes in the grips of the cougar, Bergere finally was able to break free of its jaws.

Bergere, bloodied but still alive, crawled over to the trail while her fellow riders struggled to keep the cougar down.

The riders reportedly grabbed Wolf's $6,000 bicycle and used it to pin down the cat until help arrived.

"I know for a fact I would be dead if they didn't come back in, I would just be gone," Bergere told KING. "That cougar had me."

WDFW Officer Chris Moszeter arrived on the scene and put a bullet between the cougar's shoulders while the women held it down, bringing the battle to a close.

"The people on the scene took immediate action to render aid, and one of our officers was able to arrive within minutes to continue medical aid and coordinate transport," said WDFW Lt. Erik Olson. "We may have had a very different outcome without their heroic efforts."

According to a GoFundMe campaign set up to help Bergere with her recovery, she suffered severe trauma to the face and permanent nerve damage.

Bergere was released from Harborview Medical Center in Seattle on Feb. 22 and reunited with an earring the beast had torn out and consumed.

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Florida Lawmaker Proposes Bill To Legalize Killing ‘Crack Bears’: REPORT

’When you run into one of these crack bears, you should be able to shoot it, period,’ Shoaf said.

Stray dog repeatedly escaped from shelter to hang out in a nursing home. Now, he gets to call it his own: 'If it's meant to be, it's meant to be.'



A nameless stranger with a mysterious past found himself incarcerated in a facility in Bellaire, Michigan. While clearly homeless, he nevertheless evidenced a strong sense of belonging. However, he apparently did not feel that he belonged at the Antrim County Animal Control shelter.

The dog, later named Scout — a 65-pound mutt at least 10 years of age about whom little was known except for signs of past abuse and evidence of having been shot in the face — managed to break free of the shelter on multiple occasions, clearing both the shelter's 10-foot chain link fence and a 6-foot privacy fence, then crossing a highway, reported the Detroit Free Press.

"He climbed the chain-linked kennel," Heather Belknap, the shelter's director, told the Washington Post. "There's a six-foot solid vinyl fence around the dog kennels. He jumped over that fence."

This was no mere escape, but a journey somewhere specific: the Meadow Brook Medical Care Facility, a long-term, 82-bed nursing home catering primarily to seniors.

The first time he got out, Scout made his way inside the nursing home and slept in the lobby on a leather loveseat. A nurse found Scout the next morning then called animal control, who acknowledged he had gone missing the night before.

Scout made another great escape just a few nights later. Again, he found his groove on the leather loveseat, and again he slept until caught.

The Free Press indicated that, despite being carted back to the shelter a second time, Scout wasn't ready to call it quits, making his way to his spot in the nursing home a third time just a few nights later.

"He was pretty relentless in his pursuit to be here," Stephanie Elsey, a clinical care coordinator at the facility, told the Post. "He found his home."

Following the dog's third incursion, an employee at the nursing home took Scout home. While the arrangement was not meant to be, it spurred a conversation amongst the nursing home staff concerning the prospect of adopting Scout.

"I’m a person who looks at outward signs, and if it’s meant to be, it’s meant to be," Marna Robertson, the facility's administrator, told the Free Press. "He did that one time, two times, three times, and obviously that's something you should pay attention to. And I asked the staff, 'Well, he wants to be here. Would anybody like to have a dog?'"

The staff evidently answered in the affirmative — to the delight of the residents.

Rhonda Tomzack, an administrative assistant at the facility, said, "I think it reminds them of being home. ... When you're home you have your pets, and you don't get to have that here. Having a dog around makes it feel like home."

Scout has reportedly had the run of Glacier Hill, a unit at the facility housing 20 seniors, since 2017.

In addition to visiting various residents, particularly those liable to give him biscuits, he also comforts the elderly, even if behind closed doors, having long since learned to open them.

82-year-old Shirley Sawyer, one of the residents, said, "He'll always let you pet him and lets you talk to him if you need someone to talk to. ... It's very nice."

Sawyer's brother, Bob Shumaker, also in residence, frequently feigns to be asleep while Scout noses him before Shumaker finally caves and gives him a biscuit.

Despite a clear history of abuse, the dog reportedly responds well to the elderly, particularly the most vulnerable among them.

Robertson told the Free Press, "He certainly has a penchant for the elders. He's very in tune with what they need, especially our very vulnerable population. If they have dementia or if they're dying, he knows that, and he will go and be with them and comfort them. He must've just felt like he needed to be here."

Jenny Martinek, the nursing home's household coordinator, noted, "To each and every one of them, it's their dog."

In honor of Scout, the nursing home has once again kicked off a fundraiser for the Antrim County Animal Shelter.


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Bodycam video shows police officer shooting family's labrador/golden retriever mix dog, Ohio community demands 'justice for Dixie'



An Ohio community is demanding justice for the killing of a family dog by a police shooting caught on bodycam video.

Around 1 p.m. on July 2, four dogs became frightened by nearby fireworks and ran out of the house, according to the family that owns the dogs.

Owner Tammie Kerns said she and her daughter were attempting to get the dogs under control when Lorain Police Department Elliott Palmer arrived at the scene.

Bodycam footage shows one of the family dogs run toward Palmer and then return to the yard. A second dog, named Dixie, ran toward Officer Palmer, and he fired a gunshot that hit the animal. The dog ran away from the officer, but Palmer fired three more shots at the wounded dog that was retreating from him. The severely injured 3-and-a-half-year-old golden retriever and labrador mix is seen on police bodycam video struggling in the street.

The owner confronts the officer, who orders her, "Get back!"

Within seconds, a crowd of neighbors gathers to see the wounded dog in the street as Palmer instructs, "Everyone get back!" The neighbors angrily confront the officer.

Several officers appear on the scene, and Officer Palmer drives away.

Dixie is seen on the police bodycam footage lying on the pavement motionless. Dixie died at the scene of the shooting.

Kearns assumed that the officer was there to assist in retrieving the dogs, and not to shoot Dixie.

"She was paralyzed after one bullet, but he just kept shooting her. He shot her four times," Tammie Kerns told Cleveland.com.

Kearns told WKYC, "After she was shot one time in the street, he should have just let it go and let us get the dog and take her where she needed to be treated. But he didn't do that. She was crawling – useless, helpless – in the street. He continued shooting her as she was trying to come to safety, and he just kept shooting her three more times after the first time."

"This was excessive force. It was terrifying. He could have tased her or used mace. But he immediately reached for his gun," Kearns continued. "The dogs got out once before and that officer opened his backdoor to help me get them back."

Mellenie Kerns, the owner's mother, said, "He shot twice and she ran away and she still didn’t show any aggression and then he finally hit her in the street and just continued hitting her."

In the police report, Palmer claims he feared for his safety by the labrador mix running toward him.

The Lorain Police Department released a statement to WJW, "While all the facts are not yet known, the investigation has been assigned to the Lorain Police Department’s Office of Professional Standards. … Chief McCann is also working with several outside expert consultants who will be assisting with and reviewing the facts of this case."

Palmer has been placed on administrative leave.

The Kerns family are demanding "justice for Dixie."

Tammie Kerns said, "We want everybody to know this guy needs to get off the street."

Kerns said of the officer, "He should lose his job. He should go to jail. He should rot."

Mellenie Kerns added, "Honestly, I want the fullest extent of Goddard’s Law. I want his weapon removed, I want his K9 removed. He is not safe around animals or children."

On Friday, there was a "Justice for Dixie" rally held in Lorain to hold the officer accountable.

Lieutenant Jacob Morris of the Lorain Police Department responded to the rally, "I want to offer our condolences to the Kerns family. Regardless of the situation, they’re dealing with the loss of a family member. It hurts to even say that we were involved in that, but with that being said we can offer our condolences – and we certainly, certainly do. I’ve spoken to the family and trying to be a resource for them as the investigative process rolls out."

Tammie Kearns told WKYC that she plans to file a lawsuit.

A "Justice for Dixie" petition has garnered more than 25,000 signatures, and demands the "immediate removal of duty of Officer Elliot Palmer for the shooting death of a family's pet dog named Dixie."

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(WARNING: Graphic and disturbing video)

Lorain police officer placed on administrative leave after shooting dog www.youtube.com

Team Fluff takes home the 'Lombarky Trophy' in a stunning 2023 Puppy Bowl claw-biter



Team Fluff got a leg up on the competition, narrowly beating Team Ruff on Sunday's Puppy Bowl XIX, multiple outlets reported.

"Because we’re playing a game, we’re having fun, we’re getting the message out about adoption," referee Dan Schachner told the New York Post.

“But the real drive here, the real win, the real championship is these guys having a forever home and not languishing in a shelter forever,” Schachner added.

Team Fluff took got its paws on the Lombarky Trophy in an overtime win with a final score of 87-83.

Pickle, a Pomeranian from Florida Little Dog Rescue, took home the Most Valuable Pup award winning 56% of viewers' votes. Animal Planet rightly calls Pickle a "two-way superstar." Her quick paws on the field were unmatched.

\u201cPickle is a two-way superstar! \n\n#PuppyBowl\u201d
— Animal Planet (@Animal Planet) 1676242800

Both teams were decked out in full uniform, with Team Fluff sporting blue bandanas and Team Ruff in orange.

In an unforgettable moment, Team Fluff's Vivianne scored the game's final touchdown.

\u201cBALL GAME OVER!! Vivian scores a walk-off #PuppyBowl touchdown as Team Fluff hangs on!\u201d
— Animal Planet (@Animal Planet) 1676238957

The fluffy athletes are competing for the best prize of all - a forever home. The event, which is filmed in the fall, is meant to promote animal adoption, Entertainment Weekly explains.

Though the cuddly cuties playing on this year's roster may already have found their forever families, there are plenty of other equally deserving pets eager to join a great family.

This year, the event featured 11 puppies and three kittens that were adoptable during the broadcast.

The adoptable pups include:

  • Arwen, a female, chocolate Labrador from the Humane Society of Missouri,
  • Buzz, a male Anatolian shepherd mix from Paws4Ever in North Carolina,
  • Captain, a male Chihuahua/Dachshund at Save an Angel in Texas,
  • CeeDee, a female terrier/Siberian husky from Dallas Dog in Texas,
  • Fortune, a male mixed breed from Animal Friends in Pennsylvania,
  • Jason, a male Great Pyrenees/Labrador retriever from Puplandia Dog Rescue,
  • Moya, a male terrier mix from Paw Works in California,
  • Red, a male shepherd mix from Nevada SPCA,
  • Twizzle, a female Labrador retriever from Animal Rescue New Orleans in Louisiana,
  • Wampa, a male American pit bull mix from Secondhand Hounds in Minnesota, and
  • Yukon, a male Chihuahua mix from Sacramento SPCA in California.
Not to be outdone, three cats were also featured as adoptable pets during the Puppy Bowl. The cats include:
  • Ghee, a male domestic shorthair from Gifford Cat Shelter in Massachusetts
  • Moo, a female domestic shorthair from Madison Cat Project in Wisconsin, and
  • Quokka, a male domestic longhair at Cleveland Animal Protective League in Ohio.

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Trucker Tuesday! | 2/1/22

Trucker Tuesday! | 2/1/22

Crowder's Falcon Correspondent: Thomas Finnegan | Louder With Crowder

Crowder's Falcon Correspondent: Thomas Finnegan | Louder With Crowder

Petition started to take wounded horse away from Census Cowboy

A petition has been put up to rescue Nunu, the horse that nearly died at the hands of Chicago Mayor Lightfoot's "Census Cowboy" Adam Hollingsworth, and to prevent him from owning any more animals.

President Trump on shooter who ambushed two LA deputies: 'He's an animal; he's not a human being.'



President Donald Trump called the shooter who ambushed two Los Angeles County sheriff's deputies while they were sitting in their squad car over the weekend an "animal."

What are the details?

"Now you saw a video of that animal that went up to the car — did everybody see that?" Trump asked during his Las Vegas rally Sunday. "This animal, this animal goes up to the car — two unsuspecting fine people ... fine people. I mean, they are in very grave condition, as you know. Fine people. He's an animal. And I called him an animal, and I was criticized by people for calling him an animal. They said, 'He's a human being.' He's not a human being. He's an animal; he's not a human being."

“He's not a human being. He's an animal." Trump absolutely tears into the perpetrator who shot the two sheriffs d… https://t.co/FF00DgxvxI
— Ian Miles Cheong (@Ian Miles Cheong)1600069572.0

Reacting early Sunday morning to video of the shooting, Trump tweeted that the shooter and others like the shooter are "animals that must be hit hard!"

Animals that must be hit hard! https://t.co/zrOd9ZUl8o
— Donald J. Trump (@Donald J. Trump)1599973541.0

As you can probably imagine, some commenters criticized Trump for his tweet. Bishop Talbert Swan — who last month lamented that the "Grim Reaper" took the "wrong Trump" after the president's brother Robert died — tweeted photos of accused Kenosha shooter Kyle Richardson and asked Trump, "What about this animal? You defended him."

In 2018, Trump called murderous MS-13 gang members "animals," after which House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) scolded the president for denying the "spark of divinity" in each person.

What else did Trump say?

At his Sunday rally, Trump also said Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden "wants to appease domestic terrorists, and my plan is to arrest domestic terrorists, OK?" While the crowd cheered and chanted "USA! USA!" the president added, "We also believe that if you murder a police officer, you should receive the death penalty."

Anything else?

The Los Angeles County Sheriff's Office is offering a $100,000 reward for information leading to the arrest of the shooter who ambushed the two deputies. The suspect is described as a black male between 28 and 30 years old. He was wearing dark clothing.

The two deputies — a 24-year-old male and a 31-year-old female who has a 6-year-old child — were rushed to a hospital in critical condition. Both of their conditions have been since upgraded to stable, which Sheriff Alex Villanueva described as a "miracle" since both were shot in the head.

Outside the hospital's entrance, video showed one protester tell law enforcement officers standing guard, "I hope they f***ing die." Another video showed the officers standing guard being told that "you're next" and "y'all gonna die one by one."

Sheriff Villanueva tweeted his thanks to Trump and Biden for reaching out with "kind words regarding the horrific ambush which our two brave deputies survived last night," KCBS-TV reported.

"Thank you for setting partisanship aside and showing your support for the LASD and all law enforcement across the County of L.A.," Villanueva said, according to the station.