A Bear for a Pet?
(Inspired by the “Found Bear… Is he yours? (Want him?)” poster from field trip)
So, random as this is… just what would it be like to keep a bear as a pet? Of course, not very many sane people keep bears as house pets. But then again, who wants to read about sane people… or write about sane people, for that matter?
The poster tells us: “Not housebroken. Slurred speech/slight BO. Attached to open flames.” I would have thought that was the least of problems… I actually went and Google’d “pet bear”, and most of the results seemed to suggest the same thing: BAD IDEA.
And of course I’d think so too. I mean, do you really want a 600-pound animal lumbering around your house? But it does have a sense of humour to it when you think about it. Provided that it’s someone else’s house and belongings, of course.
Here’s one story of a pet bear. It made me laugh:
Once I had my own pet bear. Yes, my own pet bear. He was a friendly kind of bear and he liked to help me out. He’d even let me ride his back when I was tired or had a heavy load. And this bear had a huge lump on his head. Must have banged it trying to get honey from the bees or something.
I was a cook at a mining camp. Those miners can eat! I would cook them up a big stack of pancakes every morning. Pancakes was their favourite breakfast. I got so strong, sometimes I’d throw those pancakes up in the air to turn them over – and they’d never come back!
So maple syrup was the favourite thing to eat with those pancakes. And my bear friend would go out and roll in the maple syrup barrel for me every morning. One morning he didn’t come back when he went for the maple syrup. When I went out to look for him, that bear was dipping his paw right down into that sweet sticky maple syrup! Well!
But you know what, he didn’t stop and eat that maple syrup, the bear. No sir, he looked at me and then he walked off on three legs. So I followed him down to the river. That bear of mine climbed out to a rock in the middle. Then he put out his paw covered in maple syrup. And soon it was covered in flies too!
Suddenly, a trout jumped up. He wanted those flies…The bear tossed the trout next to my feet. He did this until we had enough trout to feed the miners breakfast. I climbed on his back and we carried the trout back to camp together. I guess the bear figured the miners needed something other than pancakes and maple syrup that day!
The next summer I came back and there was my bear, waiting on the kitchen porch. I was so happy to see him. And I wanted to go far into the woods to another river to get some trout for the miners’ supper. So I climbed on his back. But the bear went crazy! He was shaking his backside, trying to climb trees so I would fall off, trying to dump me in the river. I put my hand on the bear’s head and found out – I was riding the wrong bear!
– from HERE.
