GLOCESTER, R.I. (WPRI) — Kyla Desormier was inside her Slavin Path home Wednesday morning when she suddenly heard her dog yelping from outside.

“The windows were open so we could hear what was going on outside,” Desormier recalled. “It sounded like a cry for help and she was attacking something.”

The 16-year-old and her mom rushed outside to find their dog, an 8-year-old Labrador Retriever named Bailey, wrestling with a bobcat.

“We didn’t know what it was until we saw the body of the bobcat,” she said. “I was like, ‘Oh my God, what is going on? What do I do?”

Desormier said her initial reaction was to hurl a chair at the bobcat.

“My first instinct was to throw something to scare it off,” Desormier explained. “It let go, and then [Bailey] climbed up [onto the porch] and I let her inside.”

Despite being seriously wounded in the attack, Desormier said Bailey fought for her life.

Desormier said the bobcat retreated under their back porch, which gave Bailey an opportunity to escape.

Glocester Animal Control pulled up a short time later and euthanized the bobcat, which was later determined to be rabid.

“The animal did not look well,” Officer Jennifer Grundy recalled. “It just didn’t look right, so that’s why we decided to euthanize it.”

Grundy was shocked that Bailey survived the attack.

“[Bailey] is much smaller than a bobcat, which can take down a deer no problem,” Grundy said. “She was very lucky. There was a higher power on her side, there’s no doubt about that.”

Desormier said that, even though she didn’t touch the bobcat and barely handled Bailey after the attack, she went to Rhode Island Hospital Thursday to receive preventative rabies shots.

“I was terrified,” she said, referring to the rabies shots. “But my dad was like, ‘just think about it, you saved Bailey.'”

Her father Larry Desormier told 12 News Bailey, who suffered a deep puncture wound to the back of her neck, is now on the mend.

“She didn’t really look that beat up,” Larry said. “But [the veterinarians] had to shave almost half of her body and stitch her up.”

Larry urged other pet owners to make sure their furry friends are up to date on their rabies vaccinations.

“You need to protect them from what they can’t protect themselves from,” Larry explained. “They may be able to fend off an animal, but they can’t fight the disease.”

“We just got [Bailey] updated two months ago. It cost me an arm and a leg, but it was worth it because she’s family,” he added. “If she didn’t have her shots we would have had a whole different story here, she might not have even survived.”

Larry said he’s extremely proud of his daughter for her quick thinking.

“She was scared to death of those [rabies] shots, but she stepped up to the plate,” Larry said of his daughter. “I told her, ‘you saved the dog, so just think of the dog.'”

Bailey is already back to her normal self and is expected to make a full recovery, according to the Desormiers.

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