ALLENDALE TOWNSHIP, Mich. (WZZM) -- Connie VenRoy says it was bigger than a house cat but smaller than a lion -- so she thinks it was a cougar that frightened her outside her Ottawa County home.
It happened on December 16, when VenRoy was behind her 92nd Avenue home for an early morning smoke. She says she and the cat surprised each other, then it slammed into her.
VenRoy first heard sounds coming from her tarp-covered car.
"It sounded like 10 people were jumping from under the tarp," she says.
"It startled me so bad I dropped my cigarette and turned and this zoo-sized cat came and jumped and it had its mouth open," remembers VenRoy. "I saw the teeth, but it closed its mouth when it hit me."
VenRoy was not bitten, but whatever slammed into her left her leg bruised.
Connie's father, Art VenRoy, says she woke him up for help.
"She came charging up at about five in the morning and she said, 'Dad! Dad! There is something outside'," he remembers. "'It just bit me!'"
Art VenRoy immediately grabbed his shotgun. "I got my old number 10 here and we went out here and we looked," he says.
But by that point, the cat was gone. An Ottawa County deputy who came to investigate could not find any tracks.
The only evidence of the attack on Connie VenRoy was the bruise on her leg.
"No puncture wounds," says Art VenRoy. "Just canine imprints and a large scar, like something had hit her and opened its mouth."
"It looked like a cougar," says Connie VenRoy. "It looked like a cougar -- orange and white."
Connie VenRoy says a few nights later she again heard some unfamiliar noises when she went outside to smoke, but has seen or heard nothing since. She says she is now especially careful when her daughter and other neighborhood children go out to catch the school bus when it's still dark in the morning.