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Feline faceoff: cat vs. cougar

Give him credit — there’s no back-down in Kipper the cat.When a cougar strolled into its owner’s backyard and pressed its face up against a room window, Kipper stared its much-wilder distant cousin down — from the safety of indoors of course.
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A cougar confronts Kipper

Give him credit — there’s no back-down in Kipper the cat.

When a cougar strolled into its owner’s backyard and pressed its face up against a room window, Kipper stared its much-wilder distant cousin down — from the safety of indoors of course.

The feline faceoff happened on May 11 and Rocky Mountain House’s Quinn family is still talking about it.

Kristin Quinn was watching hockey with boyfriend Nathan Turner at her parents Jim and Diane’s house in southwest Rocky along the North Saskatchewan River when Kipper jumped up on a chair.

The house cat was clearly riveted by some wildlife that could just barely be glimpsed in a small gap in the blinds.

“I kind of said, ‘Oh look at that, isn’t that cute, Kipper is talking to his deer friend,’ ” she said on Friday, still chuckling at the memory.

“My boyfriend is like, ‘That is not a deer. That is a cougar.’

“So we’re like, What! We were running around there, phoning Fish and Wildlife.”

Kipper didn’t seem too rattled by his close encounter. The cougar took it in stride as well.

“The cougar didn’t really look like angry. It just looked curious, and it didn’t shy away when we were taking pictures right up at the window.

“They just kept staring at each other.”

After a while, the cougar got bored and wandered off just as Fish and Wildlife officers arrived. They scared off the cougar.

Quinn, 25, said it’s the first time she has seen a cougar in the area and it hasn’t been seen again.

“It’s pretty neat. Now that it’s over, it’s one of those once in a lifetime — hopefully — experiences.”

Cougar sightings are not all that unknown in the West Country but they typically steer clear of populated areas.

It is unusual, though, to get such a good view of the elusive animals.

And to watch a cat and cougar go face to face like a couple of boxers in a pre-fight stare-down ritual, well, that’s off the unusual scale.

pcowley@www.reddeeradvocate.com