Goat attacked by lynx, fur flies inside northern Ontario home

When a lynx attacked 'Stella', the pet goat earlier this month she ran inside her owner's northern Ontario home with the wild cat still on her back.

John Cox said on the morning of March 10, a lynx entered his yard in Dinorwic, east of Dryden, Ont., then jumped on top of his nanny goat Stella, started clawing it and biting its neck.

Cox, watching from inside, said he quickly went to get a rifle out of the cabinet, but was feeling flustered.

"I have a spinning lock and I'm trying to remember the combination during all this chaos," he said. "But I was able to grab one of the rifles out."   

But when he opened his front door and tried to shoot the lynx, the goat ran inside the house with the wild cat still clinging to Stella's back.

"And now they are both inside my living room with the cat attached to her and she is kicking over furniture and spilling blood, and screaming," Cox recalls. "And I'm like 'what does a guy do now'?" 

During the brawl Cox said he was able to knock the lynx off the goat.

When you see that cat in your living room and you're comparing it to a couch and a chair, it is a very big cat.- John Cox

"I put [the rifle] on safe and butt stroked the cat," he said."It took me three times before it finally let go..."

Cox said the cat then ran towards a window past his 15-year-old daughter Kelsay, to try and escape.  

"In two bounds it leaps towards the corner and wipes out everything on the windowsill, smashing glass and it's bleeding and falls to the ground," Cox said.  

​When the lynx started coming towards him, Cox told his daughter to run to her room. Then he swung his rifle like a bat, hit the lynx and rendered it unconscious.

That's when Stella the goat returned, pushed Cox out of the way and used its horns to flip the cat into the TV stand, he said.

Cox said he pulled Stella off the lynx, and dragged her outside.

Finally, with the goat safely outside, Cox said he was able to clearly make a shot, kill the lynx and "end the chaos."

"When you see a cat out in the bush, you look at it and say, 'gee, that's a big cat," Cox said. 'But when you see that cat in your living room and you're comparing it to a couch and a chair, it is a very big cat. It's head came to above my hip."

Cox said Stella has fully recovered from the injuries around her neck where the lynx dug in.