A mountain lion killed a dog in Breckenridge, Colorado, on Friday night. The dog was outside without its owner at the time, according to Colorado Parks and Wildlife spokesperson Rachael Gonzales, and the agency does not plan to remove the lion.
Summit County is mountain lion country, and late fall is when the overlap gets worse. Deer move down with the weather, lions follow the deer, and the light is gone before dinner. A dog on a tie-out in a dark yard looks like exactly what a lion came for.
“Roaming pets are easy prey and can attract mountain lions,” Gonzales told the Summit Daily.
What this means for your dog
CPW’s list is short and mostly about timing. Keep pets where you can see them, especially from dusk to dawn. Use a leash. Bring dogs inside at night. Do not leave pet food outdoors.
Bird feeders belong on the same list. Seed pulls in small mammals and deer, and deer pull in lions. CPW asks residents to take feeders down rather than stock them for the winter.
If a lion turns up in the yard, make the yard unpleasant: car alarm, pots and pans, a whistle, an air horn. Do not let it get comfortable. Report sightings to the Hot Sulphur Springs office at 970-725-6200, and report them early. Officers can only monitor a lion whose movements they know about.
None of this is an argument for staying indoors after dark. It is an argument for turning on the porch light and carrying a leash on the last trip of the night, the same way walks after dark already change with the season.