Thanks I been reading about and studying bear attacks for over 50 years.

Sense I read my first one in Out Door life in the mid 60's.

What I found out it is much better to be armed then to bend over and kiss your A$$ good bye.

As the anti hunting, anti self defense crowd wants you to.

That's what the whole goal of the play dead and don't fight back push is.

If you don't need a gun to defend your self there is no need to own one. If a live bear is more important then a dead or mauled human then it is bad to hunt them.

If bear spray is better then a gun then there's no reason to own a gun. The whole bear spray issue is an anti gun anti hunting push by the anti gun and anti hunting crowd.

Pro animals are more important then humans thinking.

If no need to hunt then no need to own guns.

Take away self defense, take away hunting you take away 2 of the major reasons to own guns.

Once less and less people have reasons to own guns the easier it is to out law them and disarm the populace.

Fortunately we have the 2nd amendment and a really long history of freedom.

And we haven't went the way of Britain and Australia.

The big mistake this guy made was taking his dogs for a walk off the leash in bear country. Untrained dogs do exactly what they did. Run up the trail, encounter the bear, bark and have some fun until the inevitable happens and the bear decides it's had enough.

The dogs then have the holy shit moment and high tail it back to their owner who now has a big ball of hair and teeth coming at him.

yep untrained dogs can cause a person lots of grief.

One time when I was out with my lab as we came around a sharp corner in the road he woofed.

Took off running as I looked a sow black bear and cub was about 40yards away.

The dog stopped on command and came back I put him on a down stay as I was drawing my pistol and yelling at the bear.

The sow slapped the cub off the road and started towards me popping her teeth.

As I drew a site picture on her nose I am telling my self when she hits 20 yards she's going to die.

At about 30 she turned and followed the cub off into the woods.

A well trained dog and the confidence to handle the situation convinced her to back down.

quote:

Originally posted by A7Dave:
The big mistake this guy made was taking his dogs for a walk off the leash in bear country. Untrained dogs do exactly what they did. Run up the trail, encounter the bear, bark and have some fun until the inevitable happens and the bear decides it's had enough.

The dogs then have the holy shit moment and high tail it back to their owner who now has a big ball of hair and teeth coming at him.

I think you're right, the loose dogs precipitated the attack, but I've long considered dogs and loose ones at that to be part of my bear prevention strategy.

Around here its common to have loose dogs around the home. Come night fall, most residential neighborhoods are commonly patrolled by nocturnal bears and most Dillingham'ers can relate stories about Ol' Fido that was much appreciated and loved for his/ her ferocity in chasing off bears from the back yard. I understand the difference between Fido harassing a bear while the homeowner is safely behind the sliding glass door as opposed to being out in the willows.

I'd consider a dog to be an early warning system and a loose dog to be an even earlier warning system. In the other bear mauling cases we've had this summer I wonder if the outcome would have been different if the soldier or the joggers would have had a leashed dog they could cut loose or a loose dog moving with them. I've moose hunted for quite some time with my Labradors loose and wandering somewhere in front of me. They don't hunt moose, but I always thought they'd give me a heads up if a bear was in bound and in a hurry.

Its all academic for me, my dog Babe isn't a fighter so regardless the bears reaction its my duty to blitz in for the tackle.

quote:

Originally posted by A7Dave:
The big mistake this guy made was taking his dogs for a walk off the leash in bear country. Untrained dogs do exactly what they did. Run up the trail, encounter the bear, bark and have some fun until the inevitable happens and the bear decides it's had enough.

The dogs then have the holy shit moment and high tail it back to their owner who now has a big ball of hair and teeth coming at him.

I haven't read the article so I don't know what dogs.he had. I've fought more brown bear on Chichagof Island with dogs than most Alaskan's will see in a lifetime or 2 . . None of them were "trained" to fight bears. Guess I was just fortunate to have some really awesome dogs. Its not too hard to find dogs that are good at fighting or running bears. .
Village dogs especially.Southeast village dogs excell at it. Huskies are usually pretty good. A friend had a Rodesian Ridgeback that was good at it. I think some Pits would probably be good at it. German Shepard's can be real good too. Then of course Karelian Bear Dogs are bread for it. I never got to try my Korelian/ Husky cross on bear but he really excelled at everything so he would have been good I'm sure.

I know my mountain curs wouldn't have run back. I'm glad he got his gun out and got a good shot in him.I know of one incident in Ca where a houndsman treed a bear and tied his dogs off. The bear skinnied down the back of the tree hit the ground and instead of running off, came around the tree, rushed right past the dogs and attacked the guy. His buddy, quick thinking let a couple dogs loose and they went after the bear getting it off the guy. Luckily he didn't receive any serious injuries. Bears can be pretty damn unpredictable.

Scott

I think you get my point.

Walking an Alabama hog dog off leash is one thing. Walking the typical block head, fat, stupid lab (that gets most of its exercise from getting up and moving to the next warm sun spot on the floor) down the trail is what gets a lot of people into trouble.

Another guy here was jogging (he had headphones in) with his dog off leash. It probably thought the big fluffy "dogs" it ran up to would like to play. Nope. He became food and the owner didn't hear the fuss it made as the wolves killed it (because he had his headphones in).

My point is that when semi-urbanites hit the trails with the average house-dog, predictable results with Mr. Bear ensue.

At least he had a gun to feed the bear while it munched on his hand. Well done.

[QUOTE]Originally posted by A7Dave:


Another guy here was jogging (he had headphones in) with his dog off leash. It probably thought the big fluffy "dogs" it ran up to would like to play. Nope. He became food and the owner didn't hear the fuss it made as the wolves killed it (because he had his headphones in).

My point is that when semi-urbanites hit the trails with the average house-dog, predictable results with Mr. Bear ensue.


At least he had a gun to feed the bear while it munched on his hand. Well done.[/


Head phones. . Can't blame a dog for being owned by an idiot. ]