THE MANY ADVENTURES OF BEAR


The Purse Snatcher

I was walking Bear by my apartment building in downtown Grand Rapids, when I spotted this sweating, out-of-breath teen running on the vacant hillside lot nearby. There was a string of about 3 people strung out behind him, chasing him, and as they kept getting closer one of the pursuers (barely had enough breath to shout) called out “Stop him, he’s a purse-snatcher!”. So I lined Bear up, gave him the “send” command, and watched him take off down the hill straight at the fleeing purse-snatcher. That kid almost had a heart attack.... 100+ pounds of Chesapeake charging down the hill at him. He stopped running, put up his hands, and started screaming “I give... I give... call him off!” I called Bear back to me with the whistle and told the kid to come up the hill slowly. I remember worrying that the kid would run off again before the others (people chasing him) would get there, so I grabbed Bear by the collar and pretended to have trouble holding him. I told the kid, “Don’t move... I don’t know if I can hold him if he sees you run!” Of course, I was faking, and Bear was just excited... it was a pretty fun game for him. Eventually, about 6 people who had been chasing the purse-snatcher all caught up, and the police came. Mostly the police had to keep the chasers from kicking the kid’s butt. After all he had roughed up an old lady and snatched her purse. When it was all over, Bear got a letter of recognition/commendation from the Grand Rapids, Michigan police department.


Find My Keys

Bear was a great retriever.  I remember once I left my car keys in a neighborhood park.  It was midnight and dark, no moonlight.  Just for the heck of it I sent him 150 yards through the darkened park to where I remembered I had set them down on he grass, just on the odd chance he'd understand what I was talking about when I said "Fetch".  Sure enough he came back with my car keys in his mouth.  Amazed me.


Fish Poachers

One day while I had Bear out for a stroll in the park we wandered down by the dam of the Grand River.  There was a fisherman fishing for salmon in the river.  As I stood there watching him we started up a conversation because there were also a few men fishing illegally in the steps of the dam.  They were snagging the salmon out of the steps.  The legal fisherman was getting more angry by the minute.  I told him I would back him up if he wanted to call the DNR.  He did and they arrived.  They told us to stay where we were while they checked it out.  They came back and told us they couldn’t find any of the snagged fish.  We told them we know they had a bunch because we seen them haul them out of the steps.  The officers said without the fish, they couldn’t do anything about it.  I then told them that Bear could find them if they wanted to give him a try.  They said sure.  Well it wasn’t too long after sending Bear into the brush and we seen shrubs and trees shaking.  I told the officers, "there are your fish".  Bear was having a good ole time rolling in the pile of illegally caught salmon.  Needless to say, the fish poachers were not too happy.



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