I found the story about Loki the therapy dog printed on the front page of The Citizen on Monday, March 17 a bit troubling. The story started by saying that Loki "died... after defending his family from a bear." However, further on it turned out that Loki, who wasn't on a leash or fenced in his own yard, wandered off and discovered a bear den and got into a scrap with the mother bear that was protecting her cubs. Loki's owners apparently never even knew that the bear den was there. So the bear was not threatening the family. It was the other way round, the dog was threatening the bear's family.
It was fortunate that when the conservation officer was called the mother bear wasn't shot. As it turns out the family of bears will be relocated to the Northern Lights Wildlife Society in Smithers but now they need $4,000 to upgrade their facility to accommodate the mother bear.
This story has a simple lesson. If the dog had been on a leash or properly secured in its own yard it would still be alive today and the public would not be called upon to come up with $4,000 dollars to look after the damage the dog caused.
Roy Olsen
Prince George
