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Australia is home to a seemingly countless number of animals humans want to avoid encountering in the wild, which apparently includes the kangaroos that are typically harmless but can be aggressive on certain occasions—including the situation that forced a man to square up with one that got ahold of his dog in a river.
If you’ve spent enough time on the internet, you’re probably familiar with a pretty legendary video featuring a guy who basically ended up in a boxing match with a kangaroo after it put his dog in a chokehold.
That man managed to dispatch the marsupial with relative ease, although the same can’t be said for a 59-year-old boxing trainer who spent six minutes fending a kangaroo off during a similarly wild incident that unfolded in The Land Down Under in 2022.
According to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, Mick Moloney of Mildura (a town located in the state of Victoria) also had to jump into action thanks to what went down while he was walking his dog (an Akita named Hatchi) near the banks of the Murray River last week.
Moloney (who is an MMA instructor with a background in Brazilian jiu-jitsu) eventually spotted Hatchi struggling to free himself from the grips of the kangaroo that had managed to drag the pet into the water, and his owner quickly waded into the river and pulled out his phone before staging a fairly dramatic rescue.
@sbsnews_au Watch the viral moment an Aussie man jumped into an outback river to save his dog from a wild kangaroo. The video, captioned “martial arts are for everyone, even kangaroos”, has been viewed over 33 million times. #news #australia #kangaroo
He chronicled what was going through his head when he approached the kangaroo, saying:
“The muscles on this thing, I was like ‘This thing’s just got out of jail’ or something … It was jacked. I thought, ‘I’ve got to video this, because no one is going to believe this.’
“Basically, slapped him across the head, and he jumped me and we ended up having a bit of a tussle in the water, lost my phone then found my phone.
The kangaroo basically looked like it was about to kick the legs out at me and I splashed some water in its face and tried to take off and it had another go at me as I was leaving.”
Moloney warded off inevitable criticism from animal activists by noting he simply did what he needed to do at the moment to save his dog, and you’ll be glad to hear Hatchi seems to be doing just fine after making it back to shore.