A Chilean family woke up to a shocking breakfast guest, a 2-year-old puma circling in the kitchen.
Amalin Haddad said she discovered the puma in her kitchen when she went down to make herself breakfast.
"I was making breakfast and all of a sudden… I thought it was a dog because I saw its legs first, but it was a puma. A puma, a puma like those you see in the zoo," Haddad said.
Local reports quoted Haddad as saying she enclosed the animal in her kitchen and quickly alerted the authorities who came to investigate.
Police indicated it was likely the animal was kept as a pet and either escaped or was released into the wild and was trying to make its way home when it came across the Haddad family home in the well-to-do Lo Curro neighborhood of Santiago.
"That's what the police think. That it belongs to someone because it didn't seem like a wild puma from the mountains. It was well cared for," Haddad explained.
The cougar never attacked Haddad, her family or the family dog, perhaps because it was possibly domesticated.
However, that is not to say the deadly animal did not cause a stir.
Haddad's son, Nicolas Selma, said he was awoken by his mother's screams.
"I was sleeping when all of a sudden I heard screams, 'it's a puma!' I came down and we really had a puma locked in the kitchen," Selma said.
Officials from Chile's agricultural service, or SAG, were called in to safely remove the large cat from the family home.
Curious neighbors lined the street as they watched officials struggle to rescue the animal.
"The people from SAG [agricultural service] shot it with three darts so it would sleep so they could take it out, but I think he took them out, so it did not work. And that is why it has taken so long to get it out," a neighbor, Carolina Herrera, said.
The cougar, or mountain lion as it is also known as in much of North America, was eventually sedated and removed from the family home.
It was taken to the National Zoo where it was treated for minor injuries.
The SAG has yet to announce what will happen with the animal once it has recovered from its unlikely adventure.
