Study Says 80% of Dogs Won’t Protect Their People From a Bear—Would Yours?

Your dog is your number-one fan, your best bud, and your... biggest protector? We all would like to think that if we were in serious danger our dogs would rush to our sides (and there are plenty of news-story anecdotes that prove as much, like this dog who fended off a rattlesnake for his human). But apparently, this protective instinct only applies to certain species in the animal kingdom, and bears may not be on that list.

According to research from Professor Tom Smith at Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah, many dogs actually won’t protect their person against a big, scary bear. Smith and his students studied 326 bear attacks over the past several decades. They found that in 80 percent of the incidents, pups did not protect their pet parent from an encounter with the bear.

Get 20% off 
PrettyLitter, just for our kin

Save on the litter with color-changing tech that helps you better care for your cat.

Get Your Coupon

Smith said that in many cases, dogs took off and ran or “sat and watched” as the conflict continued. There were, of course, more specific stats where the attacks were concerned, Smith told Cowboy State Daily. “Dogs responded to bears attacking their owners 20.9 percent of the time (68 of 326 cases) and were successful 79.4 percent in stopping the bear’s attack (54 of 68 cases),” according to the study’s abstract. “However, in those instances the bear redirected its attack on the human, and 85 percent of those people sustained injuries to themselves ranging from slight to severe.”

And sadly, in only 4.6 percent of the cases, humans were able to save their pups from a bear, though that didn’t stop people from trying. “They’d go in there with their bare fists. Are you kidding me?” he said. Smith attributes this behavior to humans regarding their dogs more as “family” than as property these days.

Smith adds that people need to be very considerate before taking their pup into bear country. “This is a grudge match from time immemorial,” Smith said, citing the ongoing beef wolves and bears have had for centuries. He adds that a dog on a leash is “a wolf on a rope.”

He also warns that when dogs on leashes are attacked, the person on the end of the leash will most likely get attacked, too. But off-leash dogs are also not going to be safe from a bear, either of course. A study from the University of Wisconsin (which looked at non-fatal conflicts with black bears in the 48 continental United States over 17 years), 79 percent of these bear attacks on dogs involved a dog who was off-leash.

He advises just playing it safe and keeping your pup far away from where bears might be. But in this case of a surprise bear encounter, bear spray could go a long way in keeping you and your leashed dog safe.

According to California Fish and Wildlife, the best way to keep your dog safe from bears includes a lot of preventative measures. If you live or vacation in an areas where bears might be nearby, follow these steps, among others: Keep your grills clean and food clean, keep garbage cans locked away when they’re not out for pickup, and feed pets indoors.