Black Bear Eats Family's Chihuahua In Front Of Children

[matcom]

<snip>

A predator-meets-prey encounter hit home for an Eagle River family who lost a dog to a roving black bear Aug. 1.

Ginger Fletcher, 36, lives off Greenhouse Street in Eagle River Valley alongside her three siblings and parents who built on plots of land homesteaded by the family decades ago.

Fletcher said the area has always seemed like an ideal place to raise her three children: Katie, 3, Colby, 6, and Chris, 16. She said she landscaped her yard last year creating an ideal area for her children to play with their many cousins on the family's 10 acres.

Bears are common in the area, Fletcher said, but she never imagined one would be so bold as to prey on her family's 9-month-old miniature Chihuahua, Casper.

She said Casper, weighing 3 pounds, was an indoor dog that only went outside to go to the bathroom or lay in the sun for a couple of hours on warm afternoons.

Casper was leashed outside for a few minutes to relieve himself around 6 p.m. Aug. 1 when it caught the attention of a black bear passing through the family's yard.

"He hadn't been out very long, and my son was getting ready to get him," Fletcher said. "My two little ones started screaming, 'There's a bear, there's a bear.'"

Fletcher said her youngest two children were kneeling on the living room sofa looking out the window when they noticed the black bear. She was in the kitchen when she heard them yell that the bear had taken an interest in the dog, which had begun to bark.

"He was a little dog, but he didn't really bark that often," she said. "I really didn't even hear him barking, so, I mean, it wasn't that much of a bark."

But it was enough to catch the bear's attention.

"When the dog started to bark, the bear turned around and started coming for the dog," Fletcher said. "He grabbed the dog and ripped him, basically, off the leash in front of my kids."

The gruesome scene caused a panic in her children, especially Chris, who began screaming for the bear to put down his dog.

"He was screaming so loud that a car that was going by Eagle River Road heard the screaming," said his grandmother, Evelyn Johnson. "He didn't know what was going on, and he called 911, and the police came."

Chris's screaming also caught the attention of his uncle, Kurt Johnson, who grabbed his gun and drove to the Fletchers not fully realizing what was happening.

Fletcher said she was recovering from knee surgery and was trying to respond as quickly as she could to protect and shield her children from the scene unfolding before them.

http://www.alaskastar.com/stories/092806/new_20060928001.shtml

[leftofthedial]

1. well, which was it?

A chihuahua or a dog?

[leftyladyfrommo]

2. Oh, chihauhaus are always getting killed by something -

Hawks get them even. They are just too little and are easily mistaken for food.

Poor kids. That would be awful. But in bear country they really should get a bigger kind of dog.

Bears hate dogs.

[matcom]

3. Bears HATE dogs?

sounds to me like this bear LOVED that dog and probably wanted to wash it down with a bit of Chianti :rofl:

[xchrom]

15. matcom?!?! corona goes with chihuahua.

[Coventina]

4. They left a tiny dog on a leash alone outside in bear country?

I hope these people never own another pet. They are obviously too stupid to be pet owners.

[Divameow77]

10. That's not fair

the article says that it's rare for bears to for anything but garbage, birdseed, etc. They rarely harm animals in that situation.

It was a a horrible thing for those kids to have to watch, have some compassion.

[Coventina]

30. Um, what is "not fair" is leaving a tiny dog alone to be eaten by a large

predator.

I do have compassion for the poor kids. And yes, that is a terrible thing to have to witness. It still doesn't change the fact that it's the mother's fault. She's the responsible party in that situation.

I just hope she's smarter about taking care of the kids.

[KurtNYC]

11. Plus they have ten acres yet mistakenly believe

that their dog (or any dog) is "an indoor dog." (?)

[bif]

14. I agree

I read a book about Alaska and dogs of all sizes on leashes get killed by bears. A dog can easily outrun a bear.

[HarukaTheTrophyWife]

19. Yeah, but Alaska has a different bear problem.

Grizzlies are much bigger and aggressive. Black bears are small and generally don't regard dogs as food unless they're small enough to be rat-sized. Also, a 3lb dog probably couldn't outrun a bear. Those little legs don't get as much distance as a real dog.

[Guy Fawkes]

5. I know: let's invade the habitat of a dangerous animal,

blame it for our stupidity, and then kill it! Woo!

[mwdem]

6. She says the bears have taken over the area...

but the area is bear country to start with!

[Momgonepostal]

8. I was just going to quote this...

Good grief, who has taken over the area?

[TK421]

7. The poor bear just wanted a light snack, and that was REALLY light

:D

[democracyindanger]

9. So did they keep the bear?

[Radical Activist]

12. A fate deserved by all Chihuahuas n/t

[Drum]

13. What, no pictures?

:/

[nini]

16. The bear must have been an estrogen imbalance

:D

[matcom]

18. HA!

:rofl:

[Deja Q]

17. Hmmm, bears hate us for our freedoms?

:wow:

'Yo quiero Taco Bell' indeed...
:wow:

Sad story, in all honesty. :(

[HarukaTheTrophyWife]

20. What idiots.

You don't leave a rat outside unattended in bear country.

[musiclawyer]

21. You know Stephen Colbert won't be able to resist this story

You know how he hates bears. lol Someone should just send it to him now. Put it in the sad but true column.

[Reverend_Smitty]

22. I'm surprised nobody brought this up yet but...

everyone knows bears are just godless killing machines and ought to be systematically destroyed :P

[LeftyMom]

23. What fucking morons. Don't get a companion you won't supervise.

It doesn't matter where you live, you need to keep the potential dangers of your area in mind and only leave your animals (and kids) unsupervised in an area where those dangers are negated.

Oh, and there's a reason nature doesn't make 3 lb canids. They're not big enough to defend themselves and things will eat them. If you have an animal in the family with absolutely no capacity to defend itself, you need to watch it as closely as you would a human infant in a similar setting.

[petronius]

25. Actually, nature does make 3 lb canids

For example, the fennec, canidae vulpes zerda.

</pointless pedantry>

However, nature left to it's own devices also has mechanisms for dealing with the kind of nimrod who "never imagined" that a bear might prey on a tiny tied-up dog...

[meegbear]

24. Mmmmmmm Chihuahua

[rug]

26. The bear needs a hug.

[KamaAina]

27. A *miniature* Chihuahua?!

So that's, what, basically a rat that says "Arf, arf"? :eyes:

[maxsolomon]

28. you have 10 acres. let the little rat off leash.

at least he'd have had a chance.

anyway, a POMERANIAN is a more appropriate toy dog for alaska. it HAS HAIR.

[texanwitch]

29. That is really sad for the kids.

One summer at my grandparents farm I saw a hawk grab a kitten, the mother cat was close by. She jumped in the air, brought down the hawk saving her baby. The mother cat killed and ate the hawk. The kitten was OK.

This is way of nature, eat be eaten.