The general deer-hunting season opened on November 3 in Texas, and it seems at least one of those white-tailed critters is already fed up. A rogue deer turned the tables on two east Texas men when it attacked them outside their home in Whitehouse on November 16.
Joseph Rose and Cole Kellis noticed two deer in their front yard Friday morning, reported KETK, the NBC affiliate in Tyler. Rose attempted to approach the deer, but quickly discovered that the buck was no Bambi when it charged.
The two men—hunters themselves—ran to Rose’s truck to elude the rampaging deer, but Rose couldn’t close his door fast enough. “He came up and started poking me in the ribs,” Rose told KETK. ” I grabbed his horns and pushed him back and jumped in the back of my truck.”
All the excitement must have left the prickly buck with a nicotine craving, as it then climbed in the truck through the driver’s-side door and stole Rose’s pack of cigarettes off the console. When Rose tried to take his cigarettes back, the deer became agitated and attacked again, Philip Caulfield wrote in the New York Daily News.
The men called the local police and a game warden to the scene, and eventually five officers were able to subdue the animal using a Taser. Some of the police officers got “scuffed up” in the squabble–one even had his wrist broken, according to KXAN. Authorities have not said whether they will file charges against the thieving stag.
Smith County Game Warden Dustin Dockery told KETK that this attack should serve as a reminder to give a wide berth: “Admire deer from a distance but do not approach them because they can be dangerous.”
