pune a leopard tried to drag away a farmers pet dog but dropped it after its owner gave a chase at awasari budruk in ambegaon tehsil off the nashik highway about 50km from the city early on tuesday morningshahaji shinde the farmer was sleeping in a shed close to his house along with his pet when the leopard struck in the early hours of tuesday he woke up to the wild barking of his pet and spotted the leopard dragging the dog away for a few seconds i was scared but ran after the animal without thinking much at that moment luckily the animal dropped the dog midway and went away shinde told toihe said the indianbreed dog sustained injuries on the neck we treated the pet at a local veterinary clinic now the condition of the dog is fine shinde added had the dog not barked the leopard might have attacked me in a way we saved each others lives he saidthe villagers later reported the matter to the junnar forest authorities a team of forest officials inspected the areas and collected footage from the cctv cameras installed at the housemanchar range forest officer pradip raundhal told toi the house does not have a compound wall the leopard might have reached the spot in search of food this is the first sighting of the animal in the village we are increasing night patrolling in the village trap cages will be set up if requiredmeanwhile the villagers are scred we go to our farms at night to water crops but stopped doing so since the incident we want the forest department to trap the animal for safety of villagers said dattatray chavan a local resident