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| 4/4/2008 11:39:00 AM | Email this article • Print this article |
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| The Helsley’s Lab/Australian Shepherd, Casey, suffered deep puncture wounds from the mountain lion attack. (Courtesy Photo) |
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Dog attacked by mountain lion
Debra Orecchio
Correspondent
Brenton Spears, a resident of Pine Junction, was house sitting and dog sitting for friends Alisa and Jeremy Helsley, who live near Ridge Road and Columbine Drive in the Burland subdivision in Bailey.
He let the dog out to go to the bathroom at about 11:30 p.m. on Wednesday, March 26. About 40 to 45 minutes later, he said he heard Casey, a 50-pound Lab/Australian Shepherd mix, wailing and screaming.
"I figured she was in bad trouble," Spears said.
He couldn't see anything in the dark, so he grabbed a flashlight out of his truck, but still couldn't see her. He could, however, hear her in one spot during the minute to minute and a half that he spent looking for the flashlight. Once he had the flashlight, he still couldn't see her.
He got in his car and drove down the driveway to the bottom edge of the Helsleys' property and spotted her. Casey took off into the wooded area, still screaming. Spears drove around looking for her, but couldn't find her. He thought she might have returned to the house, so he went back and found she had made it to the house.
He could see that she was bleeding and full of puncture wounds along the top of her skull. At this point, Spears, an emergency medical technician with the Platte Canyon Fire Department, still wasn't sure what had happened to her.
"She was pretty messed up," he said.
The puncture wounds were so deep, he said, that he could poke his finger down into them. He thought the wounds might have been made by sticks, but he found them free of sticks or debris, so he figured they must have been animal bites. When he had driven down to where he originally found Casey, he thought the car must have scared the other animal away.
He said at first he wasn't going to take Casey to the vet; he thought she would be all right. But then she began to have decreased motor function, he said. The deciding factor, though, was when he noticed what appeared to be a bubble underneath the skin on the top of her head that kept inflating and deflating as she breathed. Because he thought that her sinus cavity was probably shattered, he wrapped her up in a sheet and took her to Evergreen Animal Hospital in Evergreen. He had made a few calls and found that hospital has 24-hour emergency care.
And all along he thought to himself that she was going to make it. He talked about the "golden hour," where a patient's rate of survival is so much higher if he or she gets treatment in that first 60 minutes of a traumatic injury.
"If I could just get her to the vet, she'll be fine," he kept thinking to himself.
The next morning, Spears tracked down where it all happened. He found a large pool of blood and very large paw prints, about four to five inches across, he said. He could see what looked like a back paw print where the cat planted to pounce, and another print about eight feet from that where it landed. He concluded they were from a mountain lion.
Dawson Swanson, Division of Wildlife district manager for the Bailey area, came out to investigate. Spears said Swanson found what appeared to be tufts of mountain lion fur in the blood.
Jennifer Churchill, DOW public information officer for the northeast region, confirmed that Swanson found mountain lion fur in the blood.
Swanson is "very confident" it was a mountain lion involved, she said.
"We do believe this was a mountain lion," said Churchill. Swanson was out of the office at the time of the interview.
Churchill said Swanson also visited the vet hospital and spoke to the vet who treated Casey, Terry Stephen. Speaking for Swanson, Churchill said that Casey's injuries were consistent with a mountain lion attack. It looked like she had been bitten on the head several times, Churchill added.
Stephen said that the bite wounds were only around the head and neck and that the bites were strong enough to crush the skull and cause brain damage.
Alisa Helsley, her husband, Jeremy, and their three children were out of town attending a funeral when the attack occurred. While they were there, an aunt passed away, so they had to travel to another funeral.
Casey died in the animal hospital. Alisa Helsley said Casey had too much brain damage and she wasn't able to use her body. She had to make the difficult decision to have Casey put to sleep the day after the attack.
The Helsleys' three-year-old son, Shane, said to her, "Casey is in heaven because she's a good dog."
Alisa Helsley said that while she wanted to save Casey, she had to put a limit on the vet bills. Including Casey's cremation, the vet bills came to $1,000, an amount she doesn't know how she's going to pay.
"Everything's taking a turn for the worse right now," Alisa Helsley said. "But we'll get through it."
As she was driving home on Monday, she said she is not looking forward to returning to the empty house. That's when it will hit her, she said, that the puppy they got for Christmas in 2006 is gone.
To help with Casey's vet bills, checks can be made out to Evergreen Animal Hospital and sent to 32175 Castle Ct., Evergreen, CO, 80439. Include a note saying the donation is for Casey.
Will Rogers: "If there are no dogs in Heaven, then when I die I want to go where they went."
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