Florida man injured in fight with bear while saving family dog

A Florida man was bitten in the stomach last month by a black bear cub while trying to break up a fight between the wild animal and his family’s beloved dog.

Blake Sprout said his dog chased the cub, who was close to its mother and two other cubs, after he let the dog out of his Volusia County home around midnight on Dec. 20, FOX 35 Orlando reported.

“It growled and charged and latched onto my stomach,” Sprout told the TV news about the bear.

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The dog, a Pomeranian named Karen, was attacked first, he said.

“There were three bears and my dogs saw them and ran straight towards them,” he said.

A neighbor filmed the attack, which showed Sprout running into the yard to intervene as the bear had Karen in its mouth.

“I ran up to him and kicked him in the chest to make him fall,” Sprout said.

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Sprout said he intervened as Karen was attacked because she was “part of the family.”

“I couldn’t stand there and watch her die. My kids love her,” he said. “I couldn’t tell them at Christmas, ‘Our dog is gone.'”

The bears were then trapped by the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) and relocated.

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“FWC bear management staff set traps on the property and successfully caught the three cubs and the adult female bear, then relocated the family group,” the agency said in a statement to the media outlet.

In Florida, it is legal to shoot and kill a bear in self-defense or to defend certain property.