Often, we like to think that our dogs have our backs as much as we have theirs. But you're talking about a grizzly bear. I don't care if you have the baddest, meanest dog on the block, they're not winning a fight against a grizzly bear, chief.
So you may bring along Fido to make yourself feel better while out in grizzly country. But just know that's pretty much all in your mind. If anything, your dog may actually just make the bear mad then flee, leaving you to get mauled. Speaking with Cowboy State Daily, bear biologist Tom Smith of Brigham Young University explains why dogs and grizzly bears don't mix.
Smith's team examined 326 bear-human conflicts involving dogs across the country. The number of wins in the dog column versus the bear column is nonexistent. The encounters usually ended not in our favor.
Grizzly Vs Dog
"If the bear finds (the dog) and picks it up, it's gone," he said. "If it finds the bear, it's going to antagonize the bear and then bring it back to you."
In nearly half of the encounters, the dog actually caused the bear attacks. It didn't end well for dog or owner.
"We found that the dog triggered the conflict in 54% of incidents. Approximately 2% of dog owners died in these confrontations, whereas 10 times more dogs died than people," according to the study's abstract.
Meanwhile, 80% of dogs refused to defend their owners from an approaching grizzly. They either ran away or sat and watched their owners get mauled. Sounds very much like my dog, Minnie.
"Dogs responded to bears attacking their owners 20.9% of the time (68 of 326 cases) and were successful 79.4% in stopping the bear's attack (54 of 68 cases)," the study found. "However, in those instances the bear redirected its attack on the human, and 85% of those people sustained injuries to themselves ranging from slight to severe."
Leave the dog at home. Bring bear spray instead. Don't become a statistic.
"A little bit of preparation goes a long way," he said. "There are plenty of places to take your dogs outdoors that aren't in bear country."
