A woman in Seminole County, Florida, had a tense encounter with a black bear while walking her dog, Ringo, in the Markham Woods area. The bear approached and targeted her 13-pound chihuahua mix, prompting the woman to lift the dog into the air and spin around to keep it away from the bear. During the struggle, she fell and sustained minor injuries, but she wasn’t done fighting. “My mom, she lives just down the street, and she had just stopped and handed me a bag of cookies for my kids. When I remembered I had them in my hand I took the bag and I whacked the bear across the face with it, and then I threw it,” said Savage. “She came forward and then she sniffed and she put her head down and sniffed the cookies and we ran to the front door.”
The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission responded to the incident and confirmed the presence of a bear and its cubs in the area.