Walking with wolves

[iamafish]

you should go dancing with those wolves

seriously, no-one else went with that?

[Brad]

I have had to fight a bear.

What's the story behind that?

Black bear. Had to fight it. With a treebra... well, really with a tree, but it was a small one that had fallen down and broken into segments, I had the top bit with all the branches going off it and helping keep the bear from getting close.

[empath]

I had an encounter with a black bear...when I was about two years old. Gros Morne Nat. Park. Family around the campfire, roasting marshmallows. Interloper comes snuffling around and everyone retreats into the tent. Headcount shows they left the toddler behind in the rush. Bear sniffs around, toddler stays totally ambivalent, bear licks toddler's face (presumably for the sweet messy stuff the kid inevitably failed to get into his mouth), kid giggles, bear moves on to find bag of marshmallows, chows down and eventually slopes off.

This is the same person who, in later life, can get pigeons to land on his hand for birdseed...often without trying (gets tiring to stand the the same position while they take their damn time eating, but I feel it'd be rude to shoo them ), and ducks clambering over his legs to get loose seed while he's sitting watching the clouds.


I dunno how I do it, but as near as I can tell, my method meshes with what has already been said - passive stature and stillness, and above all else a total air of ambivalence: don't be scared, worried, nervous, eager, excited, angry - ANYTHING. Just relax, and try to meditate and put the animal out of your mind - cultivate a mood of serenity and peace.

...that said, if they take an aggressive stance (growl, hackles raised, or bared teeth), give them distance and back off; as said, it's THEIR CHOICE.


On a final twist, if they still threaten to the point of attack, let the mofo have it. I was attacked by a stray dog on the way home from school in my teens; all my 'Dr. Doolittle' tricks didn't work and this thing was growling non-stop. Eventually it lunged at me as I was backing away, which I responded to by throwing my backpack in its face and running back for the school. Got inside, got a teacher to call animal control, who caught it and determined it didn't have rabies or distemper, but HAD been mistreated and abused for a long time, and put it down.

This just reinforces my stance: animals are karma incarnate - they'll treat people how they've BEEN TREATED BY people; if they get fed by passersby previously, they'll expect it of you; if they've been attacked 'defensively' by people reacting in paranoid fear in the past, they're approaching you waiting for the same unprovoked assault. Otherwise they really don't give much of a shit about you except for some uneasiness about an unknown entity in their proximity.