It was an early morning run in Ojai’s foothills that two men will never forget.
Pete Deneen was running with his friend Ross Monroe when a mountain lion attacked Monroe’s dog, forcing them to jump into action.
"We're greeted with him being taken by the back of the neck by this mountain lion, about ready to be dragged into the brush," said Monroe.
Deneen said the early morning run January 10 was unusual from the start.
"Ross and I are running partners. He lives in Santa Paula, and I'm in Upper Ojai," said Deneen. "He comes to my house, and we park and leave from here, about a mile from the Sisar Canyon trailhead. We went for a dawn run. But, as we started to go up into the canyon, there was one eerie thing after another."
He said they first ran into a group of dog walkers. Then, he thought he saw something flash across the trail. As they rain up the mountainside, they kept hearing movement in bushes. Then, near the top they discovered the remains of a skunk which had been torn apart.
Carter, Monroe’s new dog, was part of the run. Monroe had just adopted the dog a few weeks earlier from South Central Los Angeles, and the dog seemed to love being able to run in the open space. Monroe says they made it to the end of the run, more than three and a half miles up the canyon, and turned around to head back home.
"My dog was behind us, running, and we heard a bit of a yelp."
Deneen picks up the story. "We turned towards each other, and started running uphill (towards the dog). We had to run around 150 years uphill, and we come around a bend, and then comes into view Carter, and he's pinned down underneath something. A lion was not at the front of my mind...but I come within about 20 yards and see it's a lion."
Deneen says he didn’t think; he just acted, as did Monroe.
"The lion looks up, and makes eye contact, and picks Carter up by the back of his neck. Carter is a 50 pound dog, a Husky/Pit mix. It starts running towards the brush. "I don't know exactly what we were yelling, but I ran straight at the lion."
The mountain lion then dropped the dog. It tried to jump into a tree, but missed and fell on its back. It then got up and ran away.
Monroe says that was when they were able to really think about what happened.
"It was all a blur," said Monroe. "The first noise I tried to make when we were running (towards the mountain lion) nothing came out. There was vomit in the back of my mouth, I was so scared."
He said there was no formal decision making, but having two people there to charge the lion helped immensely.
As for Carter, the dog was covered with cuts and bite marks, but remarkably escaped without vital organs being damaged. Monroe said even at the vet, the dog was wagging its tail like it wanted to be everyone's best friend.
Pete Deneen thinks instinct and knowledge about what to do helped the three of them survive the incident.
The experience hasn’t soured them about running in Ojai’s foothills, but both men admit they are much more wary and watchful on their runs.
