Ratnagiri: Leopard and prey dog locked in loo for two hours, canine lives to woof tale

MUMBAI: A leopard chasing a dog in a village is most likely to end in a kill. But a recent attack ended with a strange twist in the tale. The two animals were locked in the toilet of a village house in Ratnagiri, and yet the pet dog came out without a scratch after spending more than a couple of hours with the spotted cat inside that cubbyhole.
It was around 5am on Wednesday that Ashok Tukaram Kamble, a resident of Devle village in Sangameshwar, stepped out of his village house on hearing his pet barking furiously.Kamble, whose house abuts a forested patch, saw a leopard chasing the canine.

Running for its life, the dog entered the toilet outside the house. The leopard, hot in chase, followed it inside. “Kamble rushed out and quickly latched the toilet door from the outside,” said forest guard Sagar Gosavi of Ratnagiri, who was part of the operation to rescue the leopard.
Soon word spread and some villagers alerted the forest department about the leopard on the prowl in the village. The forest officials reached the spot around 7am.
A team from the forest department reached there with a trap cage and other paraphernalia to trap the cat. “It was a delicate operation during which we got the leopard into the cage that was joined to the door of the toilet,” said Gosavi.
Leopard released in the wild
The leopard was later taken for a physical examination and once it was found “fit”, it was released into its natural habitat, said forest officer Sachin Nilak of the Ratnagiri range.
Amid all this drama, the pet dog’s owner, who had all but written his pet dog’s obituary, was surprised and relieved as the canine sprang out of the tiny toilet alive, merrily wagging its tail.