MORGAN HILL
– A woman walking her dogs early Sunday morning got a scare when
she spotted a mountain lion while searching for her dogs who chased
after the lion. Two of the three dogs quickly returned, but a third
remained missing until early Monday morning when it returned
home.
MORGAN HILL – A woman walking her dogs early Sunday morning got a scare when she spotted a mountain lion while searching for her dogs who chased after the lion. Two of the three dogs quickly returned, but a third remained missing until early Monday morning when it returned home.
“It was a harrowing experience,” Davlyn Gionetti said. “I was so worried because my dog just doesn’t do this (run away).”
She told police she encountered a mountain lion about 7:30 a.m., on Circle Drive in the Jackson Oaks subdivision in the eastern foothills of Morgan Hill.
Gionetti and her three dogs, a pointer, a collie and a sheltie, were out for a walk in the same neighborhood where a mountain lion and her cub were seen several times in May. After one of those sightings, a lair was found where the mountain lion was believed to be raising her cub, according to Morgan Hill Police Cpl. Melinda Zen.
Shortly after the woman let the dogs off their leashes so they could run, the dogs caught the scent of something and took off, she said. Only the pointer and the collie returned.
While the woman was walking in a dry creek bed looking for her 2-year-old sheltie she came upon the mountain lion about 30 feet away, which she described as full grown.
Scared, she backed away and hid.
The lion looked at the Gionetti, then walked off. After the woman called police on her cell phone at 12:19 p.m., they combed the area looking for the lion, the dog or any evidence of a confrontation.
“She did all the wrong things,” said Morgan Hill Lt. Terrie Booten. “She backed away and crouched behind a bush.”
State Fish and Wildlife Warden Kyle Kroll, who was called to the scene Sunday, agreed with Booten.
“If you come upon a mountain lion, you should make yourself as big and as noisy as possibly,” Kroll said.
The sheltie returned home about 6:45 a.m. on Monday.
