Anyone have experience with dogs and bears?
My only experience with dogs and bears comes from where our daughter lives up Rattlesnake Valley in NE Missoula. There’s plenty of noisy dogs, both big and small in that neighborhood, and we have never visited our daughter in the summer when we didn’t see at least one bear, as well as a dozen or more deer wandering the streets.
Missoula has ordinances about people leaving their trash cans out except in the morning of pickup day. They even have ordinances about people leaving fruit hanging on fruit trees after it has ripened. Both things attract bears.
I suppose some people still crowd the line when it comes to obeying the anti-bear ordinances. People are people. But I know for sure there are bears in Missoula – in spite of all the noisy dogs. Of course there are leash laws in Missoula too. Maybe the bears have learned that barking dogs behind fences aren't much of a threat.
Last summer, after spending a week in Missoula visiting our daughter, on the morning we were leaving to come home I was carrying our luggage from our motel room out to our pickup-truck. Our motel on that trip was clear on the other side of town from Rattlesnake Valley. Even so, when I got to the front door of the motel, there was an older lady studying a hand-written note posted on the door. The note ask motel guests to avoid the parking lot behind the motel because a young bear had been spotted there the night before.
About the time I finished reading the note, my wife walked up. She was leading our Cocker Spaniel (Ruger) out for his morning walk. So I pointed the note out to my wife, and told her that she probably should find a place out in front of the motel for Ruger to do his business.
I thought that older lady was going to have a fit. She was like, “What?!? There’s a bear out there and all you care about is where to walk your dog?!?”
I told her that bears are fairly common in Missoula, and that they usually don’t bother anybody as long as they are left alone. But she was still indignant. She said, “Well,
we are from Los Angeles, and
we are not used to bears.”
I was nice. I didn’t say what was on my mind. I just finished carrying our luggage out. My wife finished walking Ruger, and we got in the truck and came home.