Florida woman uses bag of cookies to save dog from bear attack
WESH, KRISTEN SAVAGE, CNN
By Bob Hazen
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SEMINOLE COUNTY, Florida (WESH) — A Seminole County woman says she and her dog were saved by a bag of cookies when a bear attacked them last week.
Kristen Savage told WESH 2 she was walking her dog, Ringo, in front of their house in the Sylvan Lake Reserve neighborhood around 8 p.m. on Friday.
“The bear snuck up behind me, went around my leg, and started biting at my dog,” Savage said. “I was hanging him like a piñata basically in the air, but every time I put my dog down on the ground, she would go after him again.”
Savage says at one point, the bear had her dog in its mouth. She spun around trying to keep her dog away, but at one point fell down.
“That’s when I started to panic because I’m on the ground, I’m in a vulnerable position. My brain was like, ‘Get up and get big,’ so I did start waving my hands and screaming at her, and stepping towards the bear,” Savage said. “She did back off, but the second I took a break from that, she sprinted right at us again.”
Savage said she remembered she had a bag of cookies that her mother had just given her.
“I kind of feel bad, but I smacked the bear across the face with a bag of cookies and I threw them at her face,” Savage said.
That was enough to shift the bear’s attention to the cookies, and Savage and Ringo were able to escape. Surprisingly, Ringo was not hurt, but Savage suffered some scrapes on her leg from the fall.
Bear snoozes outside school in FloridaBlack bear snoozes in tree outside Seminole County school for hours The bear is well-known to people in the neighborhood: Savage has pictures of her nursing cubs in the backyard, and several doorbell camera videos showing the bears on the front porch and walking in her driveway.
She believes the bear may have thought Ringo was a threat, and was protecting her cubs. She doesn’t hold any ill will against the bear, but says it did make her realize to be more cautious.
“I think it’s an important lesson to always have something on you that can scare them away, like an air horn or a spray,” Savage said. “And just pay attention to your surroundings.”
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