OT - Nature At It's Best or "How My Son Almost Lost His Dog"

Aug 13, 2020 4 Replies

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DerbyDad03 5 years ago

My son is hanging out at Lake Mead (near Hoover Dam) today. He had his boat beached along the shore line and was letting his dog take a run.

He looked up, saw an eagle circling, grabbed his cell phone and started taking a video. Suddenly he saw the eagle start to dive. He sent me this very, very short (2 seconds) video which shows the eagle starting to swoop.

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Now zoom in on this image. The brown spot on the ground just to the left of the dark grey area is his dog. The eagle was heading directly towards the dog.

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My son started yelling, jumped out of the boat, running and waving his arms. The eagle pulled up and flew towards the mountains in the background. Later on my son grabbed his binoculars and spied a nest of 3 eagles.

This is the one he was dealing with.

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I can't really say who would have won this fight, but my son's dog is pushing 10 years old and weighs about 15 lbs. I'll bet he would have been seriously hurt if contact had been made. He was just lying in the sun when the eagle started to swoop.

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dpb 5 years ago

On 8/13/2020 1:47 PM, DerbyDad03 wrote: ...

He'd been dead w/ broken back/neck instantly...

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Leon 5 years ago

All the more reason to have a Great Dane. ;~)

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swalker 5 years ago

There was a documented case recently of a large hawk taking a dog and letting him go 2 miles later. Apparently he didn't drop the dog as it had no broken bones, just the claw marks on its back. The dog weighted close to 8 pounds.

Back in 1998 when we moved to a farm we had a cat named Rascal who was pretty big as cats go. I was standing looking out at the pasture when I saw Rascal not far from the house, still in the yard.

Then I saw a hawk making a dive toward him. For some reason the hawk turned away at the last moment and then made a wide circle and made another dive. Rascal was ready and when the hawk got about 6 feet above him he made a leap with front paws wide. The hawk immediately turned away and Rascal strutted off and lived a long life.

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ScottWW 5 years ago

The third image is good for identification. As a scavenger, the California Condor, while quite large, are more careful than eagles in selecting a meal that cannot fight back. It may have landed nearby and started pecking, but it is unlikely to have attacked in a dive. In the moment, however, the size and trajectory would have been quite a fright.

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