"There were four puncture wounds in his neck," said the dog's owner, Mark Adams.
Adams says his family's French bull dog puppy, Mickey Blue, never had a chance against the large mountain lion that jumped the wall into his backyard on March 17.
"She heard the male dog bark three times, he doesn't usually bark. She looks out the window, she saw a thing in our backyard. She beat on the window, got its attention," he said.
The mountain lion dropped Mickey Blue and fled back over the fence. Their other puppy, Annie, narrowly escaped.
Adams says they were shocked to learn there was a mountain lion in their neighborhood, which is full of kids and sits on a major thoroughfare and not against the foothill. He obtained a permit to hunt the big cat down.
Under state law, the Department of Fish and Wildlife must issue the permit when property is lost in an attack. Their pure-bred puppy was worth $4,000.
"Talking to people, they've spotted it three, four years. So it's getting bigger, it's more aggressive, a kid's going to end up getting hurt or human is going to end up getting hurt. We thought we were doing the right thing by getting the permit and trying to make the community safe," said Adams.
Adams and his wife hired professionals specializing in wildlife removal who say they tracked the cougar believed to be female to a den on the Morongo Golf Course.
But that's where the trail went cold. Adams say the golf course won't give the trackers permission to go on their property, and Beaumont police say they won't allow any shooting or hunting within the city limits.
The permit, which only allows the mountain lion to be shot, is only good for 10 days. With the permit set to expire at the end of the week, Adams and many of his neighbors fear what will happen if the mountain lion continues to roam the area.
"It's not worth a kid or human being getting killed before they do something because it's going to happen if they don't do anything about this lion," Adams said. "It's not a matter if, it's a matter of when."
