This nightmare scenario happened yesterday at around 8am and one of the most stressful moments of my life.
I took my dogs to my mum's property to run them around which is something I do regularly. I have a mastiff x named Bean who is about 2.5 years old and around 45kg and a lab x who is 3 years old and is around 30kg, both were rescues originally. As I'm walking them, they spot a lone kangaroo who occasionally hangs out on my mum's property and, of course, despite my forceful pleas they chased it. The kangaroo lured them to the dam about 100 metres away and I immediately realise and sprint after them. No less than a minute prior to this happening I thought to myself to keep an eye out for this kangaroo because I've often thought about this scenario.
The kangaroo on the dam wall managed to get good hit in on River who then thankfully backed off, however Bean was lured into the middle of the dam, and of course realising the gravity of the situation I'm absolutely losing my mind. I try yelling as forcefully as ever for what seemed like an eternity to try and get Bean's attention to the point where I've lost my voice, however he's too busy swimming laps around this kangaroo who is slowly turning and watching him. They're tussling quite erratically on and off with the kangaroo trying to grab Bean and pull him under and Bean stupidly trying to grab the back of its neck and ears before swimming to a distance and trying to get behind it. At this point I know it's only a matter of time before the kangaroo gets the upper hand as Bean quickly began to fatigue. I had to try something to try and lure the roo out, so I went into full-on caveman mode. I grabbed a fist sized rock and decided to gamble a throw at its head and hopefully not hit Bean at a distance of around five or six metres. Somehow it struck the roo flush in the side of the head and it clearly became subdued and less aggressive (defensive) toward Bean.
This continued a little longer until Bean started to swim toward me, and at this point I thought he must've had enough. Well.....both him and the kangaroo get to about two to three metres from the shore and decide they might just hang out there and both look at me for a period of time. I'm demanding Bean come to me so I can grab his collar and rip him out of the water, but nope....he's just sitting there....next to his new "friend". This kangaroo is staring me down, he's about waste deep in the water with his arms tense and his claws fully ready to take my face off. I want to try and have it continue to focus on me, so I hit it again with a decent sized rock right on the nose. It then just looks at me again, turns around, heads back in, and Bean decided to follow ffs.
This is when it became an all or nothing situation for me, I head behind them...end up chest deep, it looks at me again and strike it with another rock I grabbed, however this time I'm no more than two metres from it. Bean gets within reaching distance and I managed to grab him by the collar and force him to the shore. BUT.....River.....the wildcard....the dog that is scared of water decides to charge in like it's some kind of tag team wrestling match.
So when I got River he lived with someone who originally got him from a rescue, however she had broken up with her partner and ended up in apartment in Brunswick, so she had to let him go. She still comes to visit him and River has also gone and spent a couple of weekends with her since. When I got him she mentioned he struggles with swimming. Anyway...he's swimming toward this kangaroo which is again in the middle of the dam but this swimming action is the most ridiculous thing I've ever seen. Picture doggy paddling, except the front legs are almost completely above the water line, so the only thing keeping him afloat are his back legs (one of which is bowed). So he swims directly over the head of this kangaroo, passes it, then turns back toward it. I was in two minds at this point, do I keep holding Bean who's pulling with all of his strength to go back in while I'm pretty much exhausted as I'm struggling in the grass and relying on my arm strength to hold him back, or do I go in and save the weak one and risk both of them? I again gambled that I River would think twice and head to the far shore as he isn't a fan of water....and thankfully, he did just that. I called him, he ran around the shore, I grab his collar and am then trying to hold them both. Then like the Polish hussars under command of King Bathory during the siege of Vienna, mum and her partner charge in with their Polaris buggy to save us.
I felt bad afterwards for what I did to the kangaroo which was only defending itself. Luckily it appeared to be fine in the end as it eventually hopped away.
