Dog vs. bear

Is it just myth and lore, or have there been any credible, recorded instances where a dog, any breed of dog, had fought a bear and lived to tell the tale? Just curious.

This is from some movie but I'm sure this sort of thing has happened many times before- [youtube]qp4iVmoNmjc[/youtube] People really overestimate how immediately fatal bears and big cats and etc are to dogs.

Isn't that Gregory Peck? That looks like a pretty good movie. Isn't that what the Karelian Bear Dog is known for?

No a karelian bear dog won't really engage a bear, the only types of dogs that are likely too are bullbreeds and bull/mastiff breeds. They've done it extensively through history, nearly could have been called "bearbreeds".

Bear bating use to be a blood sport. I don't know how they went but I'm sure the dogs won sometimes, even if they were working in packs. There wouldn't have been much to bet on if the bear always won.

LOL, @ Tonedog so the bull breeds REALLY are BULLheaded. Midgard didn't they have the bears tied up? I KNOW you weren't actually there but isn't that what history says? I know dogs are tough but I would think that just a SMACK from a bear's claw would be a helluva deterrent.

At times the bear was tethered, sometimes it was swimming in the thames river, sometimes fights between some guys bulldog and some guy's bear just broke out on the london streets. Sometimes the bear wore a special helmet and collar to protect it. All are referenced in history. Also bull/mastiff type dogs were used to hunt wild bears too, and properly engage them. A dangerous quarry no doubt, but not just automatic death from a "smack" as you put it. Dogs are a lot more durable than they're often given credit for, and perhaps bears and other wild animals are not quite as outlandishly supernaturally formidable and dangerous as we're sometimes lead to believe.

Knowing the "wild west" I'm sure they wouldn't have followed any strict rules and let any dog that was willing have a crack, for better or worse. Reminds me of the boar hunting culture of rural australia which has a similar attitude, but eventually the cream rises to the top and if they did it enough the bullbreeds would have started to be heavily favoured for the practice, just as they are in boarhunting.

Please check these links. http://molosserdogs.com/gallery/displayimage.php?album=lastup&cat=-533&pos=455 http://molosserdogs.com/gallery/displayimage.php?album=lastup&cat=-533&pos=450

The issue with most wild animals is that they are programmed to survive, this is why you see or hear about historic baiting sports the wild animal is always chained. A bear is not going to stick around and try to fight 4 dogs for fun, the bear will make a determination if it is worth it, if it will get food out of it, if not the bear will run away. Just like other wild animals, I saw a video of a wolf tethered fighting salukis or something clearly enough the wolf just wanted to run away but he couldn't.

[quote1315596365=davidfitness83] The issue with most wild animals is that they are programmed to survive, this is why you see or hear about historic baiting sports the wild animal is always chained. A bear is not going to stick around and try to fight 4 dogs for fun, the bear will make a determination if it is worth it, if it will get food out of it, if not the bear will run away. Just like other wild animals, I saw a video of a wolf tethered fighting salukis or something clearly enough the wolf just wanted to run away but he couldn't. [/quote1315596365] I agree with you, but a hungry bear is very dangerous. If you mean the dogs in my links! The dogs fighting against wolves and bears because they guard the sheep and goats, these dogs are working sheepdogs.

I didnt see your links, I was just speaking in general. I know the livestock protector dogs will hold the perimeter and deffend, if the predator is hungry there may be a fight. But generally speaking mother nature programmed animals to run away from danger. On a side note, I agree with you and I would hate to run into any wild animal that is hungry lol

[quote1315605574=davidfitness83] The issue with most wild animals is that they are programmed to survive, this is why you see or hear about historic baiting sports the wild animal is always chained. A bear is not going to stick around and try to fight 4 dogs for fun, the bear will make a determination if it is worth it, if it will get food out of it, if not the bear will run away. [/quote1315605574] Yeah the chaining wasn't to protect the dogs, it was actually to make the bear fight better. If it had the option of escape that would be on it's mind and it wouldn't fight, once the bears were conditioned to understand they had to fight, they could focus on fighting and perform better. The chain helped make this clear to them, eventually some bears would learn to look forward to fighting dogs. There's mention in historical texts that bears kept for bear baiting would get excited at the sight of dogs and struggle to get at them and show dissatisfaction and frustration if they weren't free to do so. The truth is the dogs would probably be safer encountering a wild bear in the wild, rather than these eager experienced dog killing bears. People don't realise there were just as many people wanting the bear to win as there were people wanting the dog to win, it was a sporting contest. Someone actually owned the bear and definitely wanted it to win because that would make him a lot of money. It was not just a cruel torture of the bear, however, there were times when things took a nasty turn for the worse. Amateurish bear and bull baits which did become an excuse for the poor people to let out their frustration on the unfortunate animals and just simply torture them. But it wasn't designed like this, this was never the original intention, it was originally a sporting contest, but one people took and did what they wanted with. If they were sadistic bitter psychopaths then the focus could just be on torturing a bear, the "bear baiting" just an excuse to do it. These cases are referenced in history as well, more so with bull baiting. But there were people back then who would be offended by this cruelty and poor sportsmanship too, you will sometimes read from people who were strongly pro bull and bear baiting, but then annoyed and disgusted by how some people did it, with no consideration for the "sport" of it and instead just torturing animals. Obviously it was usually performed in a more fair manner and there was less cruelty involved. So yeah basically you shouldn't define bull and bear baiting by the worst cases in history, even though at the best of times it wasn't a good thing. It was awful to be keeping bears for the purpose of fighting dogs ofcourse, even if lengths were taken to make it a fair and sporting contest, it's clearly a terrible thing. But that doesn't mean we should just go by the worst cases in history (or today- as you can see in pakistan) and think this represents bear baiting as the norm for it. There really hardly is a norm for how it was done, it came under many guises and in many different forms. Some were just disgustingly unfair torturings of bears, others would sometimes lean in the other direction, with the dogs disadvantaged (remember dogs would have been a lot cheaper than bears, and seeing a bear mow through dogs was a spectacle people would pay to see). Other times it was as simple as a dog having a fight with a bear, probably this was achievable after a bear had become experienced and developed a love for fighting dogs, and was no longer inclined to try and flee. Don't get me wrong, ask me "bear vs dog?" and I favour bear. But I think it's undeniable that dogs have the potential to survive going toe to toe with bears, and to even get the better of them in scuffles. A good dog can potentially control a bear in a fight, at least for a while.

[quote1315617668=Tonedog] At times the bear was tethered, sometimes it was swimming in the thames river, sometimes fights between some guys bulldog and some guy's bear just broke out on the london streets. Sometimes the bear wore a special helmet and collar to protect it. All are referenced in history. Also bull/mastiff type dogs were used to hunt wild bears too, and properly engage them. A dangerous quarry no doubt, but not just automatic death from a "smack" as you put it. Dogs are a lot more durable than they're often given credit for, and perhaps bears and other wild animals are not quite as outlandishly supernaturally formidable and dangerous as we're sometimes lead to believe. [/quote1315617668] Never said a smack was instant death just a deterrent, but hey I sing the praises of bully breeds as well, you didn't think I would owning an American Bulldog? LOL

I too am baffled by this dog vs. bear and dog vs. wolf hoopla. I must wonder WHY?...Unless the goal is massive veterinary bills and a prolonged recovery period. Not all individuals of breeds designed for hunting big game make good bear dogs. As Wolf mentioned, they all don't have the mentality. Note key word here is 'hunting' - not killing, or wrestling, or gripping, or putting in a headlock. A bear dog's job description ends when they locate the bear and keeps it busy/cornered until the hunter arrives with a suitable weapon to dispatch it. A sow can and will suss out a dog that is not committed, and this quickly creates a very dangerous situation. The dog may run to the safest place it knows - the owner - with an angry bear in tow. A bear can destroy a dog's confidence. All this prattling on about the virtues of brain-dead "hard dogs" glorifies a canine characteristic that in excess, is a serious liability in the field. A decent, ethical hunter will not allow even his terriers to rag smaller quarry to death. It shows no respect to the dog or the quarry. He will want to be gentle on the dogs so they can problem-solve, gain confidence, and he can go hunt the following weekend! Not possible with a torn up dog! I would think the same is true of dogs working in livestock guarding capacities. The number one goal is alive sheep. NOT patching up my LGDs or replacing them continuously! The dogs should not use lethal force and engage with a big predator unless absolutely necessary.

[quote1315668843=sbates] I must wonder WHY?... [/quote1315668843] OK, maybe my question was not very clear, let me explain. I had read in several LGD breed profiles that these dogs can take down a bear, and being a city girl I found that hard to believe. So I asked the question if there was some credibility to that. That's all. I have no intentions of hunting a bear, or ruining my dog's confidence. Thank you all for the replies.

Seriously were are these threads coming from they use to cut the feet off of dogs when hung on to a bull to prove how hard there line of dogs were and to show that they would keep going are we going to have a thread about that too........

This is a video of a bear test in Japan. It is a tame bear, but note the blog author's translation about the judging: "The judge explains that it is an extremely important trait for a hunting dog to have a healthy level of cautiousness. If a dog attacks from the front with no regard for the superior power of the bear, the test is stopped as it shows the dog is lacking a healthy temperament for hunting". http://nihonken.blogspot.com/2011/09/hokkaido-ken-bear-test.html