Man bravely rescues his dog from terrifying two-metre-tall kangaroo after having a 'punch on'
A man has bravely rescued his dog from the clutches of an intimidating-looking kangaroo.
While loads of people will understandably be afraid of spiders or snakes when going to Australia, roos are also certainly not to be messed with.
Mick Moloney discovered this when he noticed a two-metre-tall one in Mildura, Victoria.
During a walk along the Murray River, he noticed one of his dogs was missing and it didn't take him long to work out where it had gone.
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"I saw a kangaroo...with his arms in the water, basically just staring at me,” he explained to Sunrise.
“Next thing you know, Hutchy came up gasping for air, water spilling out of his mouth and screaming his head off.
“I was like, ‘are you kidding me?’”
The ex-policeman tried to scare the marsupial away but that didn't even make the roo flinch.
So, he whipped out his phone and recorded the moment he waded into the water to retrieve his pooch.
He said 'let go of my dog' before taking a swipe at the roo, who wasted no time in hitting back.
The footage gets a bit murky here as it appears Mick falls into the river.
However, he bounced back up and Hutchy was free to swim away.
Mick splashed the kangaroo before running away laughing.
He told the 7News programme: “I got a few [scratches]. My forearm was killing me for most of the day. It was a bit of a punch on.”
People on social media could not believe their eyes when they saw the footage.
"Kangaroo drowning me in water fear unlocked," one said.
Another added: "Kangaroo’s freak me out. They look like a body builder with a deer head. I can’t unsee it."
A third wrote: "Beating up a kangaroo is wild."
But let this be a cautionary tale to all who come across a kangaroo in water.
Roos are herbivores, meaning they only eat plants, however, that doesn't mean they don't defend themselves.
Langaroo ecologist Graeme Coulson, University of Melbourne, told NBC News: "There's a very strong instinct – kangaroos will go to water if they're threatened by a predator.
"In the case of a big male, they can definitely drown dogs. If the dog swims out to them, they've got strong arms and big claws and they can drown [the dog]."
You can pretty much imagine this is exactly what happened with Mick's dog.
Stewart Perrie