Robert Moses White knows his dog is lucky to be alive following an attack by two wolves at Miller Bay on Tuesday morning.
White was taking his German weinheimer on the pair's typical walk to the point at 10:30 a.m., when the dog disappeared around a corner and vicious growls filled the air.
"She barked at them twice, and then they had her just like that. They must have been right on the treeline ... the one had her by the ear and the other tooth was in her eyeball, and the other was yanking on her throat when I came around the corner," he said.
"If I had been 30 seconds later, she would have died."
But in this case, it took more than yelling and an aggressive charge and loud shouts from White to get the wolves off his pet.
"They would not let my dog go. I ran up, I started yelling at them and they just kept yanking on her. I just thought, 'oh my God, they're not going to stop'," he said.
"I was just lucky, I don't go out in the woods without protection so I brought my machete with me. I had to actually hit them ... I ran in right next to them and as soon as I did one let go, but the other one didn't back off and didn't realize its partner had left. I had to smack it in the head, and then it let go. Even then they only backed off six feet, and I thought they were coming back."
The dog survived the attack, but suffered deep gashes to its eyes, ears and body. White said regardless of the size of the dog, people should never underestimate the damage that wolves can do.
"I didn't realize how big they are when you get up close to them. They're big, they made my dog look tiny," he said.