Bob the Pug appears a bit sleepy after his encounter with a wolf, which had Bob clenched in its jaws. (Submitted by Courtney Scott)

Residents of a Prince Rupert, B.C., cul-de-sac banded together to save a neighbour's dog, Bob, from the jaws of a wolf.

But it may have been Bob the pug's pudgy waistline that thwarted the attack.

Norm Hebert had heard rumours of brazen wolves prowling around Prince Rupert, but it took him a moment to realize what was going on when one showed up on Alpine Drive, the street where he lives, last Thursday.

At first, Herbert thought another neighbour's larger dog was playing with Bob.

"On second look I realized it was a wolf," he told CBC News.

Aiming to end the attack, Herbert rushed out and whacked the wolf with the first weapon at hand — a Sherwood Featherlight hockey stick.

Despite manufacturer's claims that the stick's carbon fibre shaft allowed for accelerated recoil and energy transfer, the Sherwood failed to have the desired effect on the seasoned predator. The animal merely trotted off with the pug in its jaws.

"He just glared at me … and he picked it up like a mother would pick up her kitten," Herbert recalled.

Neighbours join pursuit

So Herbert called on his neighbour, Trevor Deschamps, who owns Bob the pug, for help with the rescue.

"He said, 'I think a wolf just ran off with Bob,'" Deschamps said. "All I wanted was to bring him home."

Soon the whole street was involved in the chase, including Deschamps' wife, who gave birth just two weeks before, with her kids in tow.

And eventually, the neighbourhood posse had the wolf cornered against a chain-link fence, with Bob the pug dangling from its jaws.

"Black, brown chest, he was probably a couple of hundred pounds," Deschamps said of the wolf. "We hit him with sticks and rocks and he decided to drop Bob at that time."

Bob had been punctured, but his pride was intact. Mostly.

"Apparently, he was too fat for the wolf to get a good bite into him," Deschamps said.

Perhaps sensing his continued survival on the mean streets of Prince Rupert might be a matter of size rather than strength, Bob has since refused to eat his dry food. Only black forest ham and cheese will do, Deschamps said.

"We were just commenting a week before that maybe we should put Bob on a diet because he's getting kind of fat . … And I think that might have saved his life."

Residents of Prince Rupert have been getting nervous about the number of wolves turning up around town in recent years. In 2008 alone, they reported 136 wolf sightings in the isolated coastal community.

The wolves have been spotted at the golf course, in backyards, even prowling around the civic centre, drawn to the city's population of wild deer, and also small pets.