Saddle Sore: Look out for the bear spray necessities

My dad’s most famous words, at least to me and printable in a family paper, were “Pay attention.” Yessir!

Over the years, I’ve had numerous encounters with bears, always curious on some level, but I’ve never had one in the house until the other night. Not exactly in the house — in the garage. Occasionally, I leave my garage door up during daylight as I generally come and go during the day. I manage to lock the doors, so the house is secure, and sharp-eyed neighbors can see my garage.

If I don’t go out in the afternoon, it becomes incumbent upon me to remember to close the door once darkness arrives, and that’s where the “pay attention” part comes in.

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Ready to hit the sack the other night, there came a loud “thud” from the garage, which naturally piqued my curiosity. At other times, I’ve gone to close the garage door late at night, realizing my error, and my dog, usually recumbent in his kennel by this time, pays me no mind. But the noise had alerted his ancient sense of possible danger, and as I walked through the mud room to the garage, the dog was right by my side.

With a very low, long, growl coming from him, I suspected an animal, and when I opened the door to the garage, the first thing that caught my attention was that the movement-sensitive light was on. Yep, something live moving around in there.  

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The dog had flown out the door before I gathered my wits, and the only thing I really caught sight of was the ass-end of a rather large, cinnamon-colored bear fleeing before my dog who, by nature, is a herder. A bear isn’t much compared to a nasty, pissed-off Black Angus cow. Trust me. Called the dog back and looked around the space, making sure no cubs or partners had been left behind. Closed the door, and went to bed.

Leaving for work the next morning at first light, there was a garbage bag in the middle of my driveway, about 50 yards from the house, barely opened.

“Wow, that was a busy bear,” I said to my dog, wondering to which neighbor it belonged, not realizing it was mine. Figured that out when I came home later. Either the bear had dropped the bag in his haste to get away from my dog, or he didn’t find much of interest in my trash.

And then there was the story in the paper this past week about the bozo on West Maroon Pass, who squirted some bear spray into the air just to see if it worked, even though the bear he’d seen earlier had already moseyed on. What a dumbass — sprayed the repellant up into the air, which carried it directly to four nearby Aspen women hiking over the pass. Try walking home from high-altitude after a strenuous hike during which you were sprayed with that intended to disable and scare bears away. For the man who did such a careless (stupid) thing, be reminded that some people shouldn’t be allowed outside the city limits without a chaperone.

Years ago, a bear with an epicurean appetite had broken into our cow camp and, with a dexterous move still admired by this writer, opened a locked metal cabinet with one beautiful stroke and rummaged through it. She (and I know it was a “she” as the muddy footprints of her cub were all over the floor) removed a frying pan from the cabinet and placed it on the stove. She took a bag of pancake mix and ripped it open, pouring most of the contents into the frying pan.

Smart bear, you might think, but then she ruined my admiration in one move by emptying a bottle of green dish soap into the pan. Apparently, she realized her mistake and never tasted it. Without cleaning up her mess (and there were other things), she and her cub crawled out the same window they had arrived by, leaving the remains of the shattered window lying on the cabin floor.

Years ago, my Uncle Victor emerged from an afternoon shower, towel around his waist, to find a bear sitting in front of his fridge, pawing over the contents. “No way! What did you do?” I asked, the answer being he had gone back into the bedroom and called the police. “Oh, Vic, you don’t want to call the cops. The bears get tagged and eventually relocated or killed.” An open patio door had provided the entrance. 

“AJ,” he said, he always called me AJ, “when you have a bear in your house, handle it any way you want.”

Having dinner outside in the West End, a yearling bear walked by us along the edge of the yard, ignoring our presence. The lady next to me said, “How cute! Is that your dog?”

Tony Vagneur writes here on Saturdays and welcomes your comments at ajv@sopris.net.