October 22, 2007: Polar bear and the husky, version two

[Undertoad]

A Finnish gent noted Friday's bear/husky play pics, and pointed to this French Arctic expedition gallery, where there is photo documentation of another bear/dog encounter.



In this one, there's no play involved. The dog takes an aggressive, barking approach, seemingly saying "Get out of here! you don't belong here!" Seeing the bear's immense size, the dog knows it's a dangerous situation, but is protecting the pack by trying to shush away the beast.



The bear, meanwhile, acts as if he could not care less about the dog. The big guy is not hungry, but curious; it checks out the camp's equipment, even as the dog is barking furiously. He doesn't even bother to glance at the mutt. He knows he is in no danger from this annoying pest. The dog is a mosquito.

The dog mostly stays a good 15-20 feet away, but runs closer from time to time, as if trying to engage the big beast. The dog knows that the bear is slow-moving, can always be out-run. So each time the bear even slightly turns, the dog backs off rapidly. Until...



...puppy gets a little too close, a little too careless, and the bear sees an opportunity to swat that mosquito.



But the good news is that the last two photos here are named with "close_call", so we can infer that doggy beat a hasty enough retreat to survive the encounter.

A minute of video shows the dynamic differently than the pics do.