Bear Attack

Received a call yesterday morning from our neighbor Lisa. On her way to work she saw a loose dog in our driveway and went to put him back on his chain. Lisa is very familiar with our dogs, trains one of them, and a is great all around dog woman. She found more then just one loose dog.

Four dogs were loose, two injured. Jerry, one of our new sprint dogs, was hiding in another dog's house obviously very terrified. He had been through an ordeal with some nasty cuts, one of them pretty bad. Luke, one of my main leaders, was carrying a front leg that had been bitten. Both Luke and Jerry had backed out of their collars. The other two dogs some how got off their chains with no injuries.

Lisa put the dogs back on their chains and brought Jerry home where she treated his wounds. Both Luke and Jerry are on antibiotics and in a stroke of luck the vet will be in town tonight. Both Jerry and Luke will get a thorough exam. None of the other dogs had any injuries. Both the dogs and I are very fortunate to have such a great neighbor. Lisa is a great lady with a big heart. Jerry couldn't be in better hands.

Our land is in a very bear rich area. Much of this is my fault. I've been cooking a lot of fish for the dogs. There's big stinky dog pot, lots of buckets, etc. all smelling very good to a bear. Those smells most likely called him in. I need to devise a permanent plan to deal with bears. Would help to enclose my dog pot cooker and buckets with electric wire. That doesn't protect the dogs however. One answer would be to encircle the entire dog yard with electric wire. Need to price some of this stuff out.

I'm guessing that the bear came up our dog trail off the flats, then cut in to the dog yard where he encountered Jerry going crazy. He grabbed Jerry before Jerry slipped his collar and escaped. Then he circled the dog yard toward the shed. With three loose dogs, I half wonder if they didn't get together and harass the bear running him off. He only picked up the dog pot and carried it about 20 feet. Didn't touch any buckets, didn't break into the shed where the freezer was. Seems like if the smells brought him in he would have spent more time digging around.

I think everyone will be O.K. thanks to Lisa and I need to be more diligent about keeping a clean dog yard.

Note: After a visit to the vet today (7/12/2008), he thought I was dealing with a big dog fight, not a bear attack. The number of bite marks observed on the one dog looked like a good old fashioned gang-up style dog fight. That very well could have been. With four loose dogs, that could be exactly what happened. One way or another, the mear thought of a bear in my dog yard gives cause for diligence in keeping a cleaner dog yard. No matter what happened, I'm still thankful for all Lisa did to look after my injured dog.