Artist who made Juji the dog a ‘giant’ Instagram star is trampled by a momma cow
People who follow Minnesota graphic artist Chris Cline’s Instagram account usually go there to see pictures of his dog, Juji.
Cline made Juji the golden doodle an international Instagram celebrity by Photoshopping pictures to make the dog look 10 feet tall.
The giant dog and his tiny man have had many adventures together around scenic Minnesota – sledding down snowy hills, canoeing on glassy lakes, working farm fields together, even wearing smoking jackets and puffing on pipes. And they do a lot of cuddling.
Juji has celebrity fans – Ashton Kutcher, Adam Levine and Lil Wayne to name a few.
But over the weekend visitors to @christophercline on Instagram found photos that weren’t funny at all. They show Cline in a hospital bed, his head immobilized by a neck brace, his knee slashed open and his body bloodied and injured.
He’d been attacked by a cow.
“Thursday evening I was helping with a newborn calf on the farm,” wrote Cline, who lives near Buffalo, Minn.
“I was handling the calf and her momma got extremely upset and trampled me. For what seemed an eternity, 1200 pounds of cow stomped me into the ground. She was on top of me before I could even realize what was happening.”
His girlfriend and neighbor “immediately jumped into action to save my life,” he wrote.
“Somehow I was able to escape and I ran for the closest fence and completely jumped over it and landed on my back. I wasn’t yet able to to comprehend what had happened, but I knew it was absolutely terrible. Moments later the pain hit me and I started fading in and out of consciousness. She had stepped on many parts of me but she somehow missed my chest with her hooves. My head, arms, legs and face were all trampled extremely hard.”
The doctor at the trauma unit told him it was miraculous that he escaped without any fractured or broken bones. The doc pronounced him lucky to be alive.
“I am home now and am in a tremendous amount of pain and I find every little bit of movement is excruciating. But I am alive and so very grateful to be so,” Cline wrote to his fans. “I can honestly say that this was the single most terrifying experience of my life. I thought I was going to die. I really thought that those were going to be my last breaths of air.”
He promised to be posting Juji pics “again soon,” but for now is resting and trying to rid himself of an unshakeable “feeling of fear.”
Juji, who was not at the scene of the attack, is with him now, cuddling of course.
This story was originally published June 20, 2017 at 10:16 AM.