Hero dog saves boy, 11, from cougar attack
Angel the golden retriever became a guardian angel when cat pounced
By Mike Celizic
TODAYshow.com contributor
updated 7:37 a.m. MT, Tues., Jan. 5, 2010
The 11-year-old boy didn’t have time to react — and barely enough time to realize that a cougar was flying toward him with dinner on its mind. Luckily for Austin Forman, his dog, Angel, threw herself between her best friend and a lethal predator.
Never was a dog more appropriately named than the 18-month-old golden retriever who nearly gave her life to save Austin Sunday in Bar Boston, a small Canadian town some 150 miles north of Vancouver, British Columbia.
“She was my best friend, but now she’s even greater to me. She’s more than a best friend now,” Austin told TODAY’s Matt Lauer Tuesday morning from his home, where he was joined by his mother, Sherri Forman, and Royal Canadian Mounted Police Constable Chad Gravelle, who shot the cougar and saved Angel.
“We’re really lucky that he was saved by an angel. That’s exactly what it was. There’s no other word for it,” Jay Forman, Austin’s father, told NBC News.