Well, that’s one way to fend off a wild beast.
While not something you would expect to have to do, one Maine woman taught a wild black bear a lesson about what happens if you mess with her dog.
Neither her, or the bear was quite ready for what she did next.
Lynn Kelly, 64, pulled back and slugged it right in the face.
She said she owes her ability to face the bear head on because Scooby, her well-loved dog, caught its scent and alerted her.
He’s my savior,” the woman said of her dog. “He was running around behind me, just barking.”
Scooby wanders his yard following a bear attack. Photo by WHDH
The dog had wandered off near the woods on her property, she said, while she was gardening.
The dog came running back, barking to alert Kelly to the incoming threat. The black bear was running right behind the dog, following it into the yard.
Kelly, who declined to have her face shown, said she tried to make herself look as tall as possible and yelled at the bear, but it wasn’t deterred.
“I ran over to where he had gone down and kept calling him and calling him, and he finally came running back up. And right behind him was the bear,” Kelly told the news station.
The bear looked at me, and I looked at the bear. I think we both scared each other.”
After realizing the bear wasn’t going to back down, the spunky woman tried a different tactic.
“It just kept coming closer, so I had to fight him off because I wasn’t going to run from him because I know they’ll catch you,” she said to WHDH news. “I tried to give him a punch.”
Photo from WHDH
She succeeded – the punch landed right on the bear’s face. The bear was able to get in one bite on her hand, leaving a puncture wound. But, the punch was enough to scare the bear off, with it hightailing it out of her yard back into the safety of the woods.
Her bite injury was tiny, and only needed minor stitches, the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife said.
While wildlife officials said they don’t recommend punching bears in the nose, as a rule, Kelly knew she had few options.
“He was a foot taller than I was and coming at me,” she said. “I had to fight him off because I wasn’t gonna run from him because I know they can catch you.”
“It just all happened so quick,” Kelly said. “To see a bear up that close was a little unnerving.”
While unnerving, I think it’s safe to say that is one black bear that won’t be coming near Kelly’s property again.
Watch below for Kelly’s story of how she faced off with the bear.
