A West Kelowna senior was left shaken after a deer attacked her small teacup Chihuahua in her backyard Wednesday afternoon, just days after a small dog was trampled to death by a deer in a nearby park.
Ruth, a 74-year-old woman, has lived at Golden Homes Mobile Home Park on Boucherie Road since 2014, and she says she's had many deer hang out in her backyard over the years.
But Wednesday, she says a deer in her backyard that was “determined to kill somebody” tried to attack her small, five-pound dog Chico when he went to use the bathroom.
“Next thing I know I see the damn thing coming around the corner ... chasing my dog, going like mad and it was catching up to him,” she said. “It got close enough that it was going to trample him, because the deer started lifting its feet. And I'm screaming at it, and I thought, 'Oh my God, it's going to kill him.'
“My house is usually surrounded by deer, they sleep in my backyard, I have no fear of them ... But this deer just decided it was going to kill me and my dog, it went with its front feet up. It would not leave.”
The incident happened just after 1 p.m. and Ruth says she initially didn't know if Chico survived the attack.
“I kept screaming: 'Chico run, Chico run!' And thank God he can run fast, because he was done, it had him turned over. I figured it was going to kill him,” Ruth said.
“When the dog went around the house on the other side, I didn't know if the deer was going to kill him or not because it went after him, but I guess the deer couldn't find him. But it came back and I tried to chase it away, screaming at it but it wouldn't leave, it came right at me. I'm just lucky.”
Ruth said the aggressive deer got within three feet of her. She jumped up onto her veranda to get away from it, then threw a board at it. A neighbour also threw some rocks at the deer, and it eventually left the area.
“There's something wrong, this deer has either gotten some drugs or it's gotten lyme disease in its head, there's something wrong with it. I've been around nature my whole life and I've never been afraid of a deer ever,” she says.
“This thing would have killed me had I not used some common sense and jumped up on my veranda.”
Ruth has spoken to the Conservation Officer Service and they told her they'll be looking into it. But Ruth wants those in the area to be aware that this deer is particularly aggressive, especially given the fatal deer attack on a Pomeranian at the nearby Gellatly Nut Farm Regional Park last week.
“I'm not a chicken with nature, I've had the deer sleeping under my window all summer, they never have bothered me, even with their babies,” Ruth said, adding that this particular deer was on its own.
“It wanted to kill something, I've never seen this.”
