The New York Times reported on a recent study about dog-bear fights that concluded dog people are the problem, not bears. In the September 27 piece [gift article link that may expire], pro-bear scientists detail how, in attacking bears, your dog is deceiving you into thinking he is acting selflessly to protect you, when in fact, he wants to be mean to bears.
Some gems from the article:
Such stories seem to reaffirm a bond between dogs and humans that goes back at least 10,000 years. But they also belie a more complicated reality. When it comes to bear encounters in or near the wild, dogs are the aggressors in 54 percent of incidents, according to a recent study conducted by bear experts at Brigham Young University and other institutions, and published in the Journal of Wildlife Management. In approximately 36 percent of the encounters, dogs did not come to their owners’ defense. And they only successfully alerted their owners to the presence of a bear in about 9 percent of cases.
And:
The researchers knew what they were getting into when it came to conducting this kind of work.
“We aren’t doing rocket science. It’s much more difficult than that,” quipped Lana Ciarniello, an independent scientist in Campbell River, British Columbia, who designed the province’s Bear Smart Community Program.
The bear boosters go even further in their indictment of your dumb dog, explaining that by “boomeranging” back to where you are during a bear encounter, they are showing the bear your location and making it more likely the bear will attack you. Great job, Muffin.
Wes Siler makes some excellent points about how the reporting on this study went haywire, and I suggest reading the whole piece.
My favorite takeaway from this whole ruckus? If I decide to live in bear country at some point, I can get a Karelian Bear Dog.
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