A Canadian man is alive today because his faithful dog fought off a bear attack as the two were taking a run in the park over the weekend.
Reid Roberts, 46, and his dog Pacer, were taking a jog through Forest for the World, a park in Prince George, British Columbia. Their footsteps alarmed a mother black bear who was tending to her two cubs in the nearby bushes.
“She came out right away in attack mode,” Roberts wrote in a Facebook post after the altercation. “She locked in on me right away with head down staring at me.”
Here’s where Roberts probably crapped his pants…
“I was yelling hard and waving my hands as I was backing up. I never wanted to turn or turtle and knew I had to fight… I’m not sure how I ended up on the ground off the trail but I remember her swatting at me like dogs do with their front paws when playing with another dog,” he wrote. “I just started kicking at her while I was on my back.”
Thankfully Pacer, a border collie, sprung into action and started barking and biting at the pissed off momma. This distracted the bear for only a moment. She returned to finish the job on Roberts when Pacer went after the black bear again.
Pacer attacked the bear again, managing to lead it down the trail away from Roberts, who was bleeding heavily from a hand wound.
Roberts wrapped is hand in a piece of his shirt and called 911, then a friend, and walked to a parking lot back down the path that the bear had just left.
When he finally made it to the parking lot, Roberts came across two people who asked if he was OK.
“They asked if I was ok. I said no, but I need to find my dog. The ambulance was on its way and I didn’t want to leave until Pacer was found,” he wrote.
Everything began to go blurry after emergency responders and Roberts’ friend arrived on the scene, he wrote. Roberts was treated at a local hospital and received 16 stitches in his hand. He also suffered “minor claw marks” on his stomach and arm, he wrote.
Authorities reported that the bear was later euthanized and the two cubs were tranquilized and brought to a wildlife shelter.
As for Pacer, after out running the pissed off bear and saving his owner life, he booked it to the home of one of Roberts’ friends, about a mile away from the park.
[via MSN]