MERIDIAN, Idaho (AP) – A pet squirrel named Joey prevented a burglary attempt in Idaho last week by scratching the teen suspect when he tried to break into a gun safe, police said.

The unidentified teenager told officers that the squirrel’s attack “scared him, obviously, because he wasn’t expecting to have, you know, a squirrel come flying out of nowhere at him,” said Officer Ashley Turner of the police department in Meridian, a Boise suburb. “So basically he said he took what he could and left as fast as he could.”