A Montana dog owner turned to bear spray to rescue her three pets from a charging moose and her calf in a backyard ambush caught on camera.
Shelly Thorburn, who lives in the southern Montana community of Big Sky, let her dogs outside on Aug. 27 and quickly found herself in a standoff with two wild animals on her back porch. The encounter, recorded by her Ring camera, shows the protective mother moose running full speed with her ears pinned back directly toward Thorburn’s property.
“I looked around the side of the house and it was mama moose coming, running as fast as she could with her ears pinned back,” Thorburn recalled in an interview.
Two of Thorburn’s dogs scattered as the moose burst into the yard making what Thorburn described as “grunting noises.” But her 14-year-old dog Annie, who is both deaf and visually impaired, remained oblivious to the chaos unfolding around her.
“She cannot hear, she’s deaf and she’s visually impaired,” Thorburn said of her senior pet. “So she did not know anything that was going on.”
As Annie drifted farther from safety, Thorburn sprinted through her outdoor space in growing panic. “I was fearful for sure, you know, because she was so big and I’ve never had a big animal like that run after me,” she told the outlet.
Thorburn dashed inside and grabbed a can of bear spray, which she deployed to drive off the moose and her calf. “I didn’t realize I was doing all that but I just wanted them all in the house — everybody,” she said.
The deterrent worked. All three dogs escaped the encounter without injury.
Big Sky sits less than an hour from Yellowstone National Park and lies entirely within the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem, where moose regularly move through residential areas and do not instinctively avoid human contact. Local tourism officials emphasize that residents and visitors should treat moose encounters with serious caution. “Humans and moose share the same neighborhoods,” according to guidance from Visit Big Sky. “Moose safety needs to be a top priority in the event that you encounter a moose while you’re out and about.”