Metallica’s “Don’t Tread On Me” was already on Dee Gallant’s favourites’ playlist.
Now, it must be at the very top after the song helped her scare off a cougar.
Gallant, who’s from Chemainus, was walking her husky, Murphy, on July 23 on a logging road south of Duncan when a cougar appeared and moved toward them.
“I just had the feeling I was being watched,” she said. “I looked over to the right and there he was.
“I looked at him and said, ‘Hey, you! Stop it!’ and he stopped. That’s when I started filming.”
She kept the video going for what she said seemed like several minutes, starting down the animal. She can be heard yelling: “Get out of here!” “Bad kitty!” “Go on, get!” “I’ll fight you!”
But none of it worked, so she pulled out the heavy artillery.
“I quickly riffled through my iTunes and found Metallica’s ‘Don’t Tread On Me,'” she said. “As soon as it started to play, he buggered off into the bush.
“As soon as he turned sideways, I saw how big he was.”
Gallant said she’s seen cougars before, and that neither she nor her dog were scared.
“I guess he didn’t want to eat anything that leaves a Metallica taste in his mouth,” she joked.
She’s been inundated with calls from the news media to tell her story about a new method for frightening cougars.
The experience has her thinking about creating a wildlife playlist, with maybe some selections from John Cougar Mellencamp, Def Leppard and the Stray Cats – to name a few.
Gallant is a regular player in the annual Georgina Falt Memorial Mind Games Music Trivia tournament in Duncan, organized by Don Bodger of Black Press Media as a benefit for the Alzheimer Society of B.C.
