Neighborhood dogs save the day!

[FUTURE_OF_GM]

A few of you might remember my recent story about the escaped convict and how our neighborhood dogs helped to keep him at a safe distance. ( http://www.cheersandgears.com/forums/index...mp;#entry284714 )

And you might also remember my mentioning that we lived at the edge of one of the largest Black Bear sanctuaries in NC.

SETTING THE SCENE: So I came home from work tonight and picked up my mom at around 10:30 to go to a local ice cream place and after satisfying our cravings we headed back home at about 11:00. I'm driving up our road with my bright lights on (As I always do because there are no street lights and most people turn off their porch lights when they go to bed) in the pitch black dark when I see this spot of brown flash in front of me, low to the road. After seeing the flash a couple more times as I'm approaching it my eyes wander upward to make out a big black figure. I immediately knew what it was and said "Look, there's our bear that the dogs have been barking at." This bear was massive; probably one of the biggest bears I've seen and probably every bit of about 400-450 lbs. If it were to stand beside my Focus, it's spine would probably be at about the side mirror height wise. Anyway, it ran on down the mountain through the woods away from our neighborhood, so we chalked it up to another cool experience.

So we get home and proceed to tell my dad about it, then I decided to go next door to my girlfriends house. My dad says; "Be careful walking out there, sometimes bears like to back track." I didn't think much of it until about 15 minutes later when I received a phone call from my mom who said "Do NOT go outside, that bear is in our front yard heading over to where you're at."

TIME OUT: All but 2 of the 12 dogs (Mentioned in the last story) in our neighborhood are kept up at night and one that roams free is the neighborhood Beagle named Buddy that we've adopted and who happened to be the first one to sight the convict a couple of months ago. Half of the time he stays at my girlfriend's house and half of the time he hangs out at my house. Upon receiving my moms call, my girlfriend fearing for Buddy's safety, sprints out the front door (While I'm detaining Bowser, her Chow/Sharpee mix --- he can open her screen door on his own) and catches him just before he runs off of the porch to confront the bear. (Who by now is making his way very "so-what-if-you've-seen-me-I-don't-care-slowly" into the woods at the end of the road (Where the trail is that we spotted the convict on) By this point in time ALL of the dogs in the neighborhood are just flipping out and at least 4 of the 7 neighborhood houses are either VERY lit up with exterior flood lights or have their corresponding families on the porches.

TARANTINO REWIND TO BEFORE I GOT THE CALL FROM MY MOM: My parents were off to bed for the night and just settling in when my dad heard a loud crash outside. (We sleep with the windows open) My mom gets up to see what it was and says "There's something out there." So my dad grabs the trusty shotgun (You know, the same one that camped by the door in the last story) and heads for the porch thinking someone is trying to break in to our storage building (By now the dogs are barking big time). Not 25 foot from our front porch is the bear, perched on his hind legs just shredding the hell out of our bird/squirrel feeder (Which is built out of 4x4 and 2x4s). Upon hearing the door slam when dad came out, it meandered right through one of our flower beds and over towards my girlfriends house (Where I was at)

THE VERDICT: 1) We apparently have a VERY big bear that IS NOT affraid to at least be in the presence of humans. He walked right up to our feeder with the dogs raising cane and both our porch light and carport light on, not to mention with a few of the other neighbors porch and driveway lights on. 2) I have one bird/squirrel feeder with A LOT of battle damage, god knows what else it'll destroy tonight. And 3) I'm sitiing here at 1:30 in the morning with a bunch of dogs that are now content to bark in unison everytime a leaf falls. One of our big dogs is a pit/chow mix and he'll bark at anything that moves. But the other is mostly Akita, and anyone who is familiar with that breed knows that Akitas only bark when "There is something to bark about." So, when the Akita starts barking, I'm fairly sure SOMETHING (Bear, Coon, Possum, Convict LOL) is out there.

*** Ya know... My college friends always ask me why I'd rather be here than in the city (Charlotte) and why I enjoy coming back home every other weekend so much... YOU CAN'T FIND EXCITEMENT LIKE THIS AND MY OTHER STORY IN THE CITY. I'd much rather be looking out my window at a black bear than a light rail anyday.

Edited July 10, 2007 by FUTURE_OF_GM

[toesuf94]

Wow. And we get excited feeding the coons and the possum...a bear would be kinda cool to see...just not standing 25 feet from me in the dark!

Thanks for sharing...and way to go getting the girl next door! Every straight man's dream! And with gas at $3.00 a gallon, you had better hang on to her!

[Camino LS6]

Another great story!

Thanks, FOG.

[Oracle of Delphi]

Sleep with the windows open? WTF? No air conditioning where you are?

[Sixty8panther]

Wow... crazy.

That reminds me, I wanna go camping soon.