blog dachshund hero

Heroic Dachshund Takes on a Bear and Two Cubs

by Chris Boraas August 29, 2014

“He was only 4 or 5 pounds, but I think in his mind, he was 100 pounds.”, says the owner of the heroic ‘Bradley’, a black and tan dachshund that took on a mother bear and her cubs right outside of her home in February, 2014.

The Force family explained that Bradley had always been fearless, a trait that many dachshund owners know to be a fact in the breed. Fearless and protective; but who wouldn’t be? Bradly was one of three dogs, a small dachshund among massive Rottweiler’s. “I would expect him to protect me before the Rottweiler.”, his owners go on to say. Protect he did.

Friends of the Force family had been visiting and took the golf cart out for a ride down a wooded trail near their home. Bradley insisted he’d go too, and when the group surprised a mother bear and her two cubs, he did what he did best. Bradley darted fearlessly off of the golf cart and tore after the largest of the bears.

The story goes on to say that ‘they got in to a scuffle’, but Bradley wasn’t finished. When the mother bear tossed him to the side, he went back for more! Witness say that’s when the bear took him, and her cubs, deeper in to the woods.

Even after he had been taken by the bear, Bradley returned later to the men that he had protected. Unfortunately, the wounds were too severe and Bradley died an hour later. “

I believe, honestly, that the outcome would have been different if Brad had not been with them.” - John Force, owner of Bradley