Tonk and the Grizzly

[Termite]

I saw this young lady and Tonk the night on Letterman show.
Here is a link to newspaper story. Great trail horse.
http://missoulian.com/news/state-and-reg...03286.html

Termite

[EZ2SPOT]

Great story! I am amazed that the horse faced the bear, given that the wrangler described him as being spooky. I think many horses DO step up to the plate when in serious situations. It's like they know...

EZ2SPOT

[Dani]

I ran across that story a couple weeks ago. I sure hope I never have to find out if my horse is that brave!

[PaintGal]

Thanks for sharing! What a great story.

[Hook]

Wow, what a horse and gutsy rider.
Hookie is big enough for that but I am sure not brave enough. Profit, the ultimate alpha horse, just might be.

[walkinthewalk]

I saw that too.

Years and years ago, my friends and I were riding up in the Allegheny National Forest when suddenly all of our well-seasoned trail horses got really amped up and started two-steppin' all over the place.

We knew there was either a bear or a Mountain Lion close by and prayed we didn't find out the hard way. It didn't help that we were lost and this was back in the 70's when cell phones didn't exist - lol

We round a bend on the logging trail and came to a garbage dump with a HUGE pile of still-steaming bear dung right in the middle of our path[:O]

My Arab/Saddlebred took the lead, from my friend's QH, with one eye & ear pointed downward, snortin' for all he was worth. We made them walk but boy they just about had their back feet in front of their front ones trying to get out of there.

I don't think we'd've gotten any of them to stand their ground.

I once pointed my current 24 yo TWH that's been with me for 21 years toward a really tissed off male llama. He backed the llama down in its own pasture, so he would probably be the only horse I've ever owned that might think about taking on a bear. He thinks "No Fear" became a catch-phrase after he was born[8D]

Like Hook's Profit, Duke is also a really strong alpha-dominant horse.