A YouTube video of a deer attacking a dog in a Cranbrook, B.C., residential neighbourhood has gone viral, getting more than 1.4 million hits since it was posted on June 6.

The video begins with an innocent-looking encounter between a small domestic cat and a newborn fawn huddling by a car.

The fawn's mother soon investigates, without initially persuading the cat to back off. But the adult deer soon turns its attention to a mid-sized dog nearby and that's when the two-minute edited video becomes suddenly violent.

The deer repeatedly kicks the dog as it lies on the ground while its horrified owner shrieks, "Oh, no, no." The doe then turns on the cat, which flees.

Raph Subra witnessed the incident as her father shot the video.

"It was really scary," said Subra, 13. "I thought the dog was going to get really hurt. It got some bruises but didn't get that hurt physically, but got really traumatized."

Subra said her family is getting nasty emails from people who think someone should have done more to help the dog.

"We've been getting a lot of hate mail," she said. "But really we were in shock and we don't know what to do. [The deer] was really mad and could have injured one of us."

The dog belongs to a neighbour, said Subra, and has been examined by a veterinarian. It had no broken bones or other serious injuries, he said.

Cranbrook is about 200 kilometres southwest of Calgary.

With files from the CBC's Bob Keating