Police in Saanich are warning pet owners to watch out after two incidents where dogs were pursued or attacked by aggressive deer.

One Saanich man said a doe stalked him and his dog despite his numerous attempts to make the animal run away.

It happened on Sunday, when Romeo Strasbourg and his 13-year-old Maltese-poodle cross, Zipper, set out for the same walk they’ve been doing every day since Zipper was a pup.

But when they reached the corner of Cumberland Road at Cedar Hill Road, the duo had some unexpected company.

“Of course the dog is smelling and looking all around and there was not a soul around, and then I thought I felt something or heard something behind me and I turned around and it was a deer about three feet behind me,” said Strasbourg. “I could have turned around and grabbed its snout.”

Strasbourg said he yelled at the deer several times to go away but as he kept walking, it kept on following him.

The deer followed him and his dog for a block-and-a-half until he found refuge on somebody’s front porch.

“It crossed the road and followed me all the way up to the front door, so I yelled at it again and it went away,” he said.

He then grabbed some rocks from a display to protect his dog with, but the deer had already disappeared.

According to conservation officers, the encounter could have ended much worse.

“They run up to it and they just start stomping on it with those front feet, just as fast as they can, as hard as they can,” said BC Conservation Officer Peter Pauwels.

There was another close call in Gordon Head over the weekend when a doe tried to attack a dog in a residential backyard.

The dog’s owner said he retrieved a baseball bat from his home because the deer returned to the property three times, according to police.

Conservation also received four reports of does stalking people with their dogs on Sunday alone.

Police say it’s the time of year when does are at their most aggressive, protecting their newborn fawns.

“If a doe is acting aggressively like that, guaranteed there is a fawn somewhere nearby,” said Pauwels.

Officials tell owners if they see a doe, to pick up their dog and move it away while making noise to try to scare the animal away.