Speaking of weapons and dogs...
http://www.myccr.com/phpbbforum/viewtopic.php?f=107&t=17372&hilit=Buck
Scroll down to the July 23rd post where the attacked canoeist chimes in. He read about about an attack where a man unsuccessfully tried to get a bear off his wife with a pocket knife, and decided to get a hunting knife. After reading his story, I got one too. Better than nothing, and also useful for cutting rope, shaving kindling wood, etc.
A little further in...
"I waited a bit to give you guys time to use the put-in on Abbey and then took a load to the end.
I cleared at least 2 deadfalls on the way back to get my canoe and had covered about 2/3 of the way when it happened.
So maybe 30 mins?
Everything seemed fine until I heard Sam growl.
I turned around and saw the bear.
It was about 20-25ft behind me, on the portage trail, and closing.
I was pretty shocked. I had heard nothing.
Without Sam to warn me I may not have been aware of the bear until it was too late.
I tried to make myself bigger, make loud noise and walk backwards away from it.
It was having no effect, the bear kept coming.
I briefly considered being more aggressive but was unsure if it would work or make things worse.
Before I could convinced myself to try something else,
the bear left the trail to my right, went maybe 6-8 feet into the bush,
cut to his right, ran past me and came back on to the trail blocking my retreat to my canoe.
From this slightly elevated portion of trail, he again began advancing.
I was now having some serious misgivings.
The bear's behavior seemed to me to be aggressive.
For my own safety I had to assume the worst.
I'm not a big fellow and could very well have been seen as prey size.
While I had resumed my arm-waving, noise-making, now walking backwards in the opposite direction behavior,
Sam had placed himself perpendicular to the bear and across the path.
Why didn't he run, why didn't he assume a face on aggressive posture, why wasn't he barking or growling at the bear?
Was he being incredibly dumb? Was he blocking the bears path? Was he sacrificing himself for me?
I'll never know what was going through his mind but I do know the outcome.
The bear took a few steps down the trail, opened his jaws and closed them upon Sam's back.
Sam yelled in pain.
Hope for the Best, Prepare for the Worst:
Numerous times I have discussed with my breeder/friend and on another board,
what to do in the extremely unlikely case that I faced predatory bear and my dog had momentarily distracted it.
Without a firearm, the consensus was I should use the opportunity to get away and save myself
and thereby giving some meaning to the dog's sacrifice.
To try and save the dog would be foolhardy and most probably fatal.
But boy reality can sure be different than hypotheticals.
If I had ran away it would have been towards the end of the portage where my gear was while my canoe still sat at the start.
A bit of a pickle on how I would have safely left the area.
I would have also faced the possiblity that bear when finished with his appetizer would have come looking for the maincourse.
I may have then been looking at a head on encounter with the bear armed only with the knife.
What would I have done, offered him my one arm to chew on while I stabbed him with the other?
Of course none of this was going through my mind at the time.
I only saw my beloved canine friend in danger of being killed,
and an opportunity to stop it.
Sam distracting the bear's attention gave me the opening I needed to quickly run behind the bear,
straddle its back and begin stabbing it in its neck area.
My unsureness of the effectiveness of the knife was replaced by some sense of satisfaction as the blade drove smoothly into the hilt.
At that time I wanted nothing more than to kill this bear and remove our danger.
I used my left hand to ward off any motion of the bears head or claws towards me,
while I struck again and again with the knife in my right.
One of the first few strokes must have hit a good spot because the bear began to quickly weaken.
Someone has suggested I hit the blood supply to the brain which would account for the rapid weakening.
I didn't stop until the bear was dead"