The search for a dog-killing cougar on the north shore of Shuswap Lake continues, although a conservation officer believes the big cat has probably moved on.

Tobe Sprado said Monday the cougar hasn’t been reported in or around St. Ives, east of Anglemont, since Friday afternoon.

The last sighting was two kilometres east of St. Ives and came in Friday at about 8:30 p.m., he said. The day before the attack, the cougar was seen two kilometres west of the small community.

“Our belief is it could just be passing through,” he said.

Friday afternoon, St. Ives resident Margaret Bolton tied up her Maltese-Havanese cross Tina in the back yard. When she checked on the dog a few minutes later, the 89-year-old woman saw it in the jaws of a cougar.

Bolton threw an ornamental cowbell and hit the cougar, who dropped the four-kilogram dog and took off.

Sprado said the pain of being struck by the heavy cowbell might have been enough of an association that the cougar is avoiding people and residential areas. But the big cats are common in the Shuswap.

He and another conservation officer went through the St. Ives area Saturday with a hound dog. There wasn’t enough scent for the dog to track.

“The way people described it, was just that it was a large cougar,” he said.

A baited, cagelike live trap has been set up in St. Ives in case the cougar returns. So far, though, it’s empty.

“We’ll probably leave the trap for a couple more days,” said Sprado.

Chase RCMP Const. Lora Ford said police have now closed the cougar file and left it in the hands of conservation officers.

Sprado advised people who encounter a cougar to take safety precautions including making yourself look big, grab a stick or throw stones, don’t run (it makes you look like prey), be aggressive. And report sightings to 1-877-952-7277.