A quiet backyard moment turned into a terrifying encounter when a bobcat attacked a small dog in a North Texas neighborhood, leaving a family shaken and warning others about how close wildlife dangers can get \u2014 even in familiar spaces.<\/p>\n
On Easter Sunday in a neighborhood off Rock Creek Parkway in Frisco. Claudia Asberry said her 6-pound Yorkshire terrier, Ariel, was outside in the backyard, barking at a neighbor\u2019s dog, something she often does.<\/p>\n
Moments later, a home surveillance camera caught Asberry walking toward Ariel, who appears flipped on her back. The dog\u2019s tail wags briefly before stopping \u2014 just as Asberry notices a bobcat over her dog.<\/p>\n
Asberry said she quickly feared the worst.<\/p>\n
\u201cI just knew it was over. I just knew my dog was gone,\u201d Asberry said.<\/p>\n
Asberry described the moment she realized Ariel was in danger.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe bobcat actually looked at me, and I immediately react, you know, because I knew she was in danger,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
She said she grabbed the closest object she could and threw it toward the fence, while her son-in-law rushed outside to help.<\/p>\n
\u201cI threw the closest thing I could think of \u2014 it was the puff bag \u2014 at the fence, and my son-in-law came out running immediately behind me,\u201d Asberry said. \u201cHe jumped on top of the fence, and the bobcat dropped her because he had to jump pretty deep.\u201d<\/p>\n
Despite the attack, Ariel survived. The small dog suffered three deep wounds to her neck and another in her stomach, all of which required stitches.<\/p>\n
While grateful her dog recovered, Asberry said the experience has left her shaken. The family has also reported seeing what they believe is the same bobcat just days after the attack.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt really traumatized me. It makes me nervous,\u201d Asberry said. \u201cI wouldn\u2019t want anyone, pet owner, to go through what I experienced.\u201d<\/p>\n
NBC DFW reached out to the city of Frisco and animal services, but officials said they were unable to confirm how many bobcat sightings or attacks have been reported this year.<\/p>\n
This story was originally reported for broadcast by NBC DFW. AI tools helped convert the story into a digital article, and an NBC DFW journalist edited it again before publication.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A quiet backyard moment turned into a terrifying encounter when a bobcat attacked a small dog in a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":637271,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[64,63,8942,128,338],"class_list":["post-637270","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wildlife","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-frisco","tag-science","tag-wildlife"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/637270","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=637270"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/637270\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/637271"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=637270"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=637270"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=637270"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}