October 19, 2007: Polar bear and the husky

[Undertoad]

No fewer than four of you sent this along, so although Snopes says it was collected in 2006, and confirms that it happened and was published last year, sometimes it takes a while for something to catch on, on the net.

Photographer Norbert Rosing was out on a photo session with these dogs, in the middle of nowhere, Hudson Bay in northern Canada - when a 1200 pound polar bear appeared on the scene.

But incredibly, the outcome wasn't an eaten dog. It was a half-hour session of... play.

Stuart Brown narrates a slide show of the event, in which he interprets the gestures of both animals as signals to play; the dog's mouth without fangs, the bear's ears back.

Snopes is, as Snopes must always be, a little skeptical that this was play - but dog owners have seen this sort of thing before in their dogs, and hey, if a polar bear is hungry and wants to eat, let's admit it, the dog is probably toast.

But the slideshow says the bear returned every night for a week to play again. I for one am encouraged to believe it was play; the modern dog, even the husky, is play-oriented. And why shouldn't the bear get something out of it? He's not going to be concerned for his safety, so why not the occasional social move?