"I started punching the otter in the face which I felt really bad about because it's cute..." How could I resist posting this story?? Apparently a woman's dog was getting attacked by an otter, so she jumped in the water and started punching it to save her dog.

Leah Vanon watched in horror last week as an otter grabbed her Labrador retriever and began to pull it into the water in the Tampa Bay area community. "This one large otter ... came swimming across and before I knew it she ran up the embankment and grabbed Jasmine the lab by the snout and pulled her down into the canal," Vanon said.

She had seen otters behind her West Boca home a few times but never anything like this. Vanon jumped in the water and started pushing her 8-year-old lab up the embankment. Then her fox terrier, Wiley, jumped in. "The otter immediately starts going after him and goes after his snout and starts flipping him and dunking him and to drown him like they do to a fish. I started punching the otter in the face which I felt really bad about because it's cute and I didn't want to hurt it but it was killing my dog," Vanon said.

The otter finally backed off. The dogs had some cuts on their snouts but they'll recover. Wildlife experts say otters are very curious but would only attack if they felt threatened. They also say a mother with pups is extremely protective.