[JulieC]

My rottweiler recently saved me from being trampled by an angry moose. Our local paper did a story and we made it on the front page!


Here's a readable version of the story!

Family dog saves pregnant woman from mad moose
By Tim Mowry
Staff Writer
Published January 28, 2008


It was dark, but the glow of Julie Closuit’s flashlight was bright enough and the moose was close enough that she could see it lay its ears back before it charged.

“I mainly remember it looking at me and putting its ears back and coming at us,” Closuit said. “It didn’t think twice. It came right for us.”

That’s when Berry, Closuit’s 3-year-old Rotweiller, sprang into action.

“As soon as I saw the moose, she jerked the leash out of my hand,” said Closuit, who is six months pregnant.

Closuit, 26, had taken Berry outside to go to the bathroom at their Goldstream Valley home last Monday around 7 a.m. As she does every morning, Closuit walked around the corner of the house with a flashlight to check for moose or the neighbor’s loose dog before bringing Berry out. After seeing nothing, she returned with Berry on a leash.

“We got to right about here and Berry started alert barking,” said Closuit on Sunday, re-enacting the incident with Berry at her side in the 20-degrees-below zero weather. “I thought it was the neighbor’s dog.”

But when Closuit shined her flashlight in the direction Berry was barking, she saw the silhouette of a moose’s head and two glowing eyes. The moose was hidden behind a spruce tree about 20 feet away.

Just as Closuit was thinking, ‘Oh crap, what do I do?’, Berry pulled the leash out of her hand to confront the moose. The friendly 76-pound Rotweiller rushed the moose and circled behind it in a C-shaped herding pattern.

“The moose veered toward me and Berry followed it and went around behind it,” Closuit said.

With the moose bearing downon her, Closuit, a lifelong Fairbanksan, did what her parents had always told her to do as a child in the event of a moose attack — she dove behind a pair of birch trees.

“It was already coming toward me,” Closuit said of the moose. “It ran right over where I had been standing.”

Berry returned to Closuit’s side as she scrambled to get to her feet. She looked up just in time to see the moose preparing to charge her a second time.

“It put its ears back again and took a step forward and Berry got between me and the moose and was barking,” Closuit said.

The moose retreated in the direction of Closuit’s walking trail, but Berry saw the direction the moose was going and made a swooping turn to head it off. The moose spotted the dog and took a right turn away from the house and back into the woods.

“She cut it off at the trail and drove it into the woods and barked at it like she was saying, ‘Don’t you come back here,’” Closuit said.

While they are now mainly used as protection dogs, Rotweillers were once bred to be herding dogs, Closuit said. After seeing her in action, Closuit can see why.

“I have never seen her instincts kick into gear like that,” said Closuit, who has had Berry since she was 6 months old. “She was in her element.”

After calling Berry back to her, Closuit ran back into the house and counted her blessings.

“I’ve had my fair of share of experiences with moose in my 26 years but nothing nearly this close,” she said.

Closuit’s husband, Jon Logsdon, was in the shower during the incident. He could tell something happened as soon as he saw her.

“When I got out of the shower she was sitting a chair sort of wide-eyed,” he said. “She said, ‘A moose almost attacked us.’ ”

This is the time of year that moose can start getting grumpy in Fairbanks, said Cathie Harms with the Department of Fish and Game in Fairbanks. It’s the coldest part of the winter, their energy reserves are low and there isn’t much for them to eat.

Moose aren’t as likely to retreat now as they were earlier in the winter because they don’t want to expend the energy to do unless it’s absolutely necessary, she said. Just like people, moose become crankier as the winter goes on.

“They’re more likely to have an altercation with people later in the winter,” Harms said.

A week later, Closuit, a payroll technician at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, still gets excited talking about the incident. The whole episode couldn’t have lasted more than 30 seconds, she said.

“It was the most exciting minute in my life,” said Closuit, who plans to put a fence up around her yard to prevent similar incidents in the future.

Berry, who went back to chewing on a toy shortly after the incident, is a hero in Closuit’s eyes. The dog was rewarded with treat and toy shopping trips to both Pet Stuff and Cold Spot Feeds.

“I don’t know if she saved my life but I didn’t need to go to the hospital,” she said. “Even if we did have a whole lot of luck on our side, she made the difference in my opinion.”
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