The Reminder is making its archives back to 2003 available on our website. Please note that, due to technical limitations, archive articles are presented without the usual formatting.
A pet labrador retriever sustained several head wounds in Creighton yesterday morning after apparently being attacked by two bears. Ben was chained up outside his doghouse on Creighton Avenue when the confrontation occurred. No one witnessed the attack, but Ben's owner, who asked that his name not be used, said he found two sets of bear tracks and bear claw marks on the doghouse. "He's a large, oversized dog. That's what scares me Ñ if they'll attack him, they might attack anything," said the owner. "I'm just worried about other people with children. I see bears all the time, but this is the first time they've attacked my dog." The owner believes the bears, likely hungry due to this summer's meager berry crop, were after Ben's food, which was inside the doghouse. "He wouldn't let them have it. He wasn't giving up the food," he said. "He had to have fought back or they would have killed him." Ben's owner believes the friendly dog's life was saved by the doghouse. "He protected himself by going in the doghouse and defending himself that way," he said. Ben sustained several wounds on his head from the attack, leaving scabs around his eyes, nose and one ear. The owner said his dog is doing fine but will "be licking his wounds for a couple of weeks." He estimates the encounter took place at about 4 a.m. yesterday morning. This was the second bear attack against a pet dog in Creighton in ten days. During the early morning hours of August 25, a black bear crept onto a residential deck on Fifth Avenue and attacked a dog. Creighton RCMP believe it was the same bear they shot just outside of town limits later that day. Brian Wotton, a Natural Resource Officer with Manitoba Conservation, said such attacks are generally rare. He advised residents to keep their properties free of garbage, pet food and bird feeders. The poor berry crop has caused an unusally high number of bears to roam into town limits in both Creighton and Flin Flon. Wotton said his office has averaged one to two bear reports per day in recent weeks.
