Bear on the Porch

The other night I was working on the computer while sitting in my recliner.  My dog was outside.  I heard a commotion and thought that my son's big dog was down at my house.  His dogs are huge and my dog is little so I like to have my dog inside when his are outside.  Normally they stay at his house but occasionally they come down our way.  Anyway, I hurriedly put the computer down and went to our back door.

Our house is designed so that the back door leads to a little enclosed foyer type area.  In the foyer we have a wood shed where we store about 2 cords of wood (so I don't have to traipse outside in the snow to get the fire wood).  We also have a little area where we have a box style dog house, and an area that allows us to go to the front yard of the house, the back patio, into our house, or into our little cottage attached to the house by this foyer - so 4 doorways with doors (we do leave the two doors going outside open).  On top of the dog house I keep a tub of dog food - one of those big gray plastic tubs with a snap on lid.

Back to the ruckus.  I heard this huge crash.  I hurriedly put down the computer and ran to the door that was just 6 feet from where I was sitting.  As I opened the door, I saw out the doorway (the one heading to the front yard), a good sized black bear.  It had drug the dog food container out of the foyer, through the door, got the lid off, and at that moment stopped to stare at me.  It was less than 4 feet from me.  I was stunned!  That bear had come through the door (even with a bright light on - which we leave on at night) and dragged that container off of the dog house (about 2 1/2 feet high) and hauled it back through the door then got the lid off of the container in just those few seconds before I got out there.

So there I was in the foyer with the bear right outside the door (about 3 feet from me) staring at me.  I hurriedly got back inside the house and yelled, "BEAR"!!!  My husband came running (well, he's not real fast but he came out as quickly as he could) and brought his shot gun. I had gone to the other back door and had been gathering my dog in as she was barking at the bear (but hiding on the patio) and I didn't want the bear to panic and attack.  He went to that back door and shot into the air to scare the bear away.  

I went back to check on the bear and it was gone.  I brought the dog food back in and put it into the cottage.  I blocked the way outside the door to discourage a return of the bear and shut the door tight.  We kept a very close check on things for  awhile.  The last time I had seen a bear in our area (even though I know they are around because we live in the woods) was a year or so ago.  I saw a cub crossing our driveway (but our driveway is a mile long and I saw it about midway down the driveway...not by any houses).  My son said that he thought the bear may have been hanging around his shop as his dogs have been barking for several days at something in the woods.

I guess we won't just walk outside at night and take for granted that all is okay.