As soon as I opened the door I knew...
...that I shouldn't have. But it was too late!
We have an enclosed dog run that measures about 80'x60' just off our back door. It's actually more of a Jack Russell free-fire zone. Right outside the door is the stairway that leads to a midway landing where the stairs take a 90 degree turn and head down to the dog run. We've lived here going on 9 years and never had a problem with wildlife in the dog run.
That all changed last night around 11:30pm.
Woody (his real name is "Heywood Jablowme"...but my wife makes me call him "Woody"), our youngest of 6 rescue JRTs - he's about 2.5 years old - was running around like he had ants in his pants. Usually an indication he needs to go outside. None of the other Terriers were agitated so I didn't think anything of it. I went to the backdoor and decided to send the 3 youngest JRTs out one last time for the night.
I opened the door and 3 Terriers bolted out of it and down the stairs like they were fired out of a rifle! And in that brief moment I knew I'd have about as much luck getting them back in the house as I would have getting a bullet back in a barrel after it's been fired. It was a negligent three-round Terrier burst of sorts. As wild as they can be their behavior was noticably above the normal, out-of-control, multi-Terrier madness.
In the 7 nanoseconds it took the first of three to get to ground level I heard the first loud, "SNORT". I walked the four feet from the door to the stairway gate and saw her. The sow was standing in the middle of the dog run with three swirling, brown and white, four-legged, sabre-toothed tornados circling about her. The two cubs were busy scampering their little, furry butts skyward into the nearest tree.
Momma bear was in a real quandary. So was I. As a matter of fact, I'm pretty sure we were sharing some of the same emotions at that particular moment. She was worried about her babies, I was worried about mine. But I, no doubt, had the better view from my vantage point overlooking the yard. And HOLY CRAP, what a sight. The dog run is well lit from a very bright yard light mounted on the house. I watched as momma would turn to chase one circling yard shark only to have the other two charge her from behind. She'd turn to face the threat behind her and the single dog she'd been chasing would immediately revert into "that big bear isn't chasing me any longer so I'm gonna kick it's ass!" mode. It was actually kind of amusing looking back...since no one got hurt. Mom was growling, crying and snorting all at once. And momma was PISSED!
As brave as the yard sharks are, I think they realized there was a slight chance the crazed momma bear might be a little too much to take on. I was in full Terrier-retrieval mode, yelling at them from the safety of the top of the stairs. But I faced a host of problems getting them to pay attention to me...not the least of which was they were chasing a bear around the yard. And that's the sort of adventure that Terriers live for. Kind of like WWF meets Wild Kingdom. In addition, with all the barking and snorting and growling...from bear and dogs...it was loud. The dogs were quite "into the moment" and in full ignore-the-person-yelling-at-me mode. Not to mention one of them, Jack, is completely deaf. Fortunately, Woody is a little shy around loud voices. As he made a circuit around the yard with momma bear attached to his butt he heard me yelling at him. He made a hard right and dashed up the stairs to safety.
That's when I realized that maybe calling the dog that was being chased by the bear was a tactical error. Especially at that moment because he actually listened to me and decided now was a good time to do what he was told. Woody dashed up the stairs ("levitated himself" up the stairs is probably more accurate) towards the relative safety of me and the back door. Apparently, the bear didn't know I was at the top of the stairs because she came bounding up after the dog. (Insert best Scooby Doo voice here) "Rah-row"! She got very close to me. I now know exactly what a pissed-off bear smells like. Of course, as she made the landing...about 5 stairs below me...she realized that now I was in front of her, two yard sharks were behind her, and her cubs were still down below. It's kinda funny watching two JRTs in hot pursuit actually run right up a suddenly-stopping-bear's behind! Momma saw me, reversed course and we had a big bear vs Terrier rodeo right on the stairs.
Fortunately, the Terriers are a little more nimble than the bear and were able to un-ass the stairs before momma got completely turned around. The chase was on again but the dogs, I think, had maybe decided that Woody had the right idea. Even the deaf one responded to my yelling and they eventually gave up the idea of bear-wrangling and came upstairs and into the safety of the house...where they, of course, regained their courage and began barking at the bear as if to say, "You're lucky we had to come inside".
We were all content to watch as momma walked beneath the trees crying for her babies. The little ones eventually backed down the tree where momma gave them the once-over to ensure they were OK. The cubs looked to be only 20-25 pounds...not much bigger than our largest Terrier, Lola. They disappeared into the darkness towards the East side of the dog run.
I couldn't see or hear anything. I waited about 10 minutes then crept outside with a flashlight. The dog run was bear free. They must've easily made it over the 5' chainlink fence and went wherever it is bears go after wrasslin' with Terriers.
Never a dull moment.
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