This Thursday, Aug. 10, 2018 photo provided by the Boulder, Colo., Police Department shows a mountain lion next to a couch inside a home. Police say the homeowner returned Thursday night and found the... (Associated Press) 
 
 This Thursday, Aug. 10, 2018 photo provided by the Boulder, Colo., Police Department shows a mountain lion next to a couch inside a home. Police say the homeowner returned Thursday night and found the mountain lion inside. It appeared that it had pushed through a screen and couldn’t get back out. (Boulder... (Associated Press) 
 
 This Thursday, Aug. 10, 2018 photo provided by the Boulder, Colo., Police Department shows a mountain lion next to a couch inside a home. Police say the homeowner returned Thursday night and found the mountain lion inside. It appeared that it had pushed through a screen and couldn’t get back out. (Boulder... (Associated Press) This Thursday, Aug. 10, 2018 photo provided by the Boulder, Colo., Police Department shows a mountain lion next to a couch inside a home. Police say the homeowner returned Thursday night and found the... (Associated Press) 
 
 BOULDER, Colo. (AP) — A mountain lion that became trapped inside a Colorado home killed a house cat before police and wildlife officers were able to scare it out. 
 
 Boulder police say the homeowner came back to the house late Thursday night and found the mountain lion inside. It appeared that it had pushed through a screen and couldn't get back out. 
 
 The big cat roamed throughout two levels of the home for more than an hour before officers used non-lethal rounds to scare it out the front door and away from the neighborhood, which is just southwest of downtown Boulder. 
 
 Police, who photographed the mountain lion lying down between a coffee table and a couch, called the break-in worrisome and asked residents to keep ground-level doors and windows locked at night. ||||| BOULDER, Colo. (CBS4)– A Boulder woman is mourning the loss of her family’s cat after a mountain lion broke into her home and killed the cat named Klondike. 
 
 “There was a mountain lion standing in our living room, it looked right at him and licked its lips and he took off,” said Kayla Slaughter. 
 
 She believes the big cat likely got into the home through a window. 
 
 “I got her my junior year of college. She’s been with me for 10 years,” said Slaughter when describing her beloved cat. 
 
 It took hours for officers to figure out what to do since this is a rare occurrence, especially in Boulder. 
 
 “When the cops came to the door and said, ‘There was a report of a mountain lion in your neighbor’s house,’ I thought, ‘What are you talking about?’ It seemed very odd and just unusual,” said neighbor Jessie Frankel. 
 
 Neighbors stayed inside but had a pretty good view from the windows which let them see the big cat wandering around the home. 
 
 “It went upstairs and that’s where I took the video because there is a bathroom upstairs and a window,” said neighbor Leah Frankel. 
 
 “I saw its ears and its face popped up and then it was there for a few seconds.” 
 
 Animal control officers decided to haze the mountain lion. 
 
 “They were shooting these little bean bags and I think trying to scare it out of the upper level and downstairs,” said Frankel. 
 
 Despite the beauty of living near open space, Slaughter says her family will be safer in the future, “We’ll definitely be more vigilant with keeping our windows shut when we’re not here, especially at nighttime.” 
 
 The mountain lion ran out of the house and then made its way up into the wilderness near Boulder Canyon. The mountain lion didn’t appear to be injured by the ammo that was fired. 
 
 Slaughter told CBS4 that while she is concerned the big cat wasn’t captured, she was reassured by officers it likely won’t return after being hit with the bean bags. ||||| Wildlife officials killed a mountain lion yesterday that invaded a home near Salida, attacking five dogs and trapping a mother and two children. 
 
 The mountain lion entered the home nine miles northwest of Salida about 4 p.m. Thursday after it chased a small dog through a pet door. 
 
 Michelle Bese, 27, and her two children, ages two and five, were inside with four of her five dogs. 
 
 Bese said in an interview that her Jack Russell terrier had been outside when it spotted the mountain lion and began barking at it. 
 
 The mountain lion jumped a 9-foot fence and chased the six-year-old Jack Russell terrier, named Shai, through the pet door. 
 
 Bese was sitting at the kitchen table with her five-year-old son Logan, who was coloring. 
 
 "At first I thought it was a stray dog, then maybe a coyote because it was not very big," said Bese. 
 
 However, she realized it was "a cat" when the dog turned and confronted the mountain lion. 
 
 Bese took Logan and ran to the back bedroom where Avery, her two-year-old, was sleeping. 
 
 She said Logan couldn't figure why she was dragging him through the house. 
 
 "He didn't see the lion. He thought I was pretty mad at him," she said. 
 
 She shut the bedroom door but then realized the phone was in the living room with the cat. 
 
 Her husband, Devin, was driving home with their 9-year-old daughter, Mary, and Bese wanted to warn him. 
 
 She dashed out of the bedroom, got the phone, ran back and called her husband and then 911. 
 
 When her husband arrived, he helped her and the two children out a bedroom window. 
 
 Minutes later, deputies from the Chaffee County Sheriff's Office arrived with Colorado Division of Wildlife officials. 
 
 The mountain lion stayed inside, where it had killed one of the dogs, even as a DOW officer pounded on the walls and windows. 
 
 At that point officers went in and the cat was tranquilized, the DOW said in a news release. 
 
 Bese said that one of the shih tzu died and two others lost an eye from being mauled. 
 
 She said the Jack Russell survived, even though the mountain lion had it by the throat at one point. 
 
 Bese said her priority was her children. 
 
 "I just wanted to take care of my kids," she said. "I felt bad I couldn't get the dogs into the room." 
 
 She was afraid if she opened the door for the dogs, the lion would rush in and attack her children. 
 
 The DOW said the 18-month-old male mountain lion was significantly undernourished at 40 pounds. Most cats its age weigh about 60 pounds. 
 
 After evaluating the lion's condition, wildlife officials decided to euthanize it. 
 
 The home is in a heavily wooded area perfect for mountain lions, said Mike Seraphin, a DOW spokesman. Seraphin said that a mountain lion can easily leap fences over 6 feet tall. 
 
 The lion's remains will be sent to a DOW lab in Fort Collins for analysis in hopes determining what caused the cat's unusual behavior. 
 
 Jim Aragon, a DOW wildlife manager who was on the scene, said it is highly unusual for a mountain lion to enter a building. 
 
 "We will know more after we get the results of the necropsy," Aragon said in a news release, "but this animal was not demonstrating normal behavior." 
 
 Howard Pankratz: 303-954-1939 or hpankratz@denverpost.com
– A mountain lion that became trapped inside a Colorado home killed a house cat before police and wildlife officers were able to scare it out, the AP reports. Boulder police say the homeowner came back to the house late Thursday night and found the mountain lion inside. It appeared that it had pushed through a screen and couldn't get back out. The big cat roamed throughout two levels of the home for more than an hour before officers used non-lethal rounds to scare it out the front door and away from the neighborhood, which is just southwest of downtown Boulder. Boulder woman Kayla Slaughter describes the experience of seeing the mountain lion face her cat, Klondike: "There was a mountain lion standing in our living room, it looked right at him and licked its lips and he took off," she tells CBS Denver. Now she's mourning the loss: "I got her my junior year of college," Slaughter says of the cat. "She's been with me for 10 years." Police, who photographed the mountain lion lying down between a coffee table and a couch, called the break-in worrisome and asked residents to keep ground-level doors and windows locked at night.