A small dog named Smokie saved a woman named Lee Ann Galante from a dangerous situation. When a big bear came into the yard and threatened Lee Ann, Smokie bravely barked at the bear, scaring it away and protecting Lee Ann. So, even though Smokie is just a tiny dog, he acted like a hero and saved the day!
Smokie, a small Pomeranian, was barking at shadows in the trees when suddenly, a big scary thing jumped over the fence towards his owner, Lee Ann Galante.
Galante was being attacked by a big black bear, and she thought she was going to die. But her small black dog bravely fought the bear, which distracted it long enough for Galante to get away from its grasp.
Before the bear attack on March 5, folks in Butler Township, Pennsylvania, were gossiping about a momma bear and her three cubs causing problems. Lee Ann Galante, who lives there, thought the bears had left because they hadn’t been spotted for weeks. But she was mistaken, and the bears returned, which led to the attack on her.
On the evening of the attack, Galante let her small black
Pomeranian, Smokie, out in the yard as usual for his nighttime bathroom break.
Galante, who is 55 years old, usually hears Smokie barking a lot. But on this
particular night, Smokie was barking at a tree in the neighbor’s yard, which
was separated from Galante’s yard by a fence. That’s when she noticed three
dark shapes in the tree.
Right after spotting the big bear cubs, a huge bear suddenly jumped over her fence.
Galante saw her dog Smokie nearby and started yelling for him. She was afraid the bear might harm her little dog.
She was scared that if the bear even took one bite of Smokie, he wouldn’t survive.
The mother bear quickly ran at Galante and pushed her down, pressing her face into the cement of her back porch.
“It happened very quickly. The bear was extremely aggressive and wouldn’t let up,” Galante recounted to the local news. “Her bite on the back of my head was so strong that I worried it might rip my scalp off.”
Lee Ann Galante is recalling the moment a black bear attacked her in her backyard north of Pittsburgh. https://t.co/b6xkGxRF1R pic.twitter.com/2MD3Q6z7Lo
— ABC30 Fresno (@ABC30) March 8, 2024
Remembering how scared she was, she said, “I couldn’t believe it was happening. I thought, ‘This can’t be real. A bear is attacking me.’ I thought I was going to die.”
But the brave small dog had a different idea and “kept diverting” the attention of the black bear, which was about 350 pounds bigger.
Galante said the bear kept changing its focus from her to Smokie because he was distracting it.
At one moment, the bear got near Smokie, but then it turned its attention back to Galante.
The aggressive creature charged at her, knocking her down and biting her left arm.
“She had me pinned. She bit my arm. She was on top of me,” the woman said.
But Smokie didn’t give up. He kept distracting the bear, giving Galante enough time to stand up, grab her dog, and run inside.
“I was worried she might follow us,” Galante said, describing how she quickly closed the door once they were safely inside her home with her dog.
“If Smokie hadn’t drawn the bear’s focus away, I’m sure we wouldn’t have made it out alive.”
After calling for help, she went to Butler Memorial Hospital for treatment. According to NBC, she had many staples on the back of her head, a broken nose, cuts inside her mouth, puncture wounds on her arm, and scrapes and scratches all over her body.
Today, Galante is nearly back to normal, and Smokie, who only had a scratch on his back, is also doing fine.
“I’m just grateful Smokie wasn’t seriously hurt,” Galante says, giving all the credit to her brave dog for saving her life. “He saved me, and I saved him.”
Only Channel 11 was there as Lee Ann Galante returned home on Thursday and reunited with her beloved dog, Smoky. https://t.co/q8hCJiIj6d
— WPXI (@WPXI) March 8, 2024
The Pennsylvania Game Commission officials located the mother bear and her three large cubs perched in a tree nearby. The police reported that the female bear was still acting aggressively.
The Game Commission, which says bear attacks are very rare, put down the mother bear. The cubs were tranquilized and released into an undisclosed area. Officials believe the cubs are old enough to take care of themselves and are hopeful they’re doing well in the wild!
