My daughter has been riding my horse and I take them out on a little trail off our property with me walking, her riding. Well today we saw a bear in the distance in the woods and I thought, ok we’ll just talk loud and it will go away. But instead it saw us and started in our direction. Well we high tailed it out of there! My horse never saw it and I think it was too far away for him to even smell but it was a little scary! i would have felt better on a horse!!!
Bears are in our area but considering we really don’t see them often at all. I always wonder what my horse would do if we encounter one but I really hope I never do!!
Have you encountered bears??
How frightening ! :eek:
I hope never to see a bear when riding !
Please be careful !
Years ago, I was out on my mare and she kept balking, which was very unlike her. I told her to keep going, which she did, but not willingly. We were in a roughish area of grass and blackberries and such and I thought I saw a big boulder ahead. Until it turned its head and had ears – a bear, not a boulder! I decided to listen to my horse and headed back to the barn. That’s my one and only bear encounter on horseback, so far… they are around here but just not often seen, especially in daylight.
How cool is that! Don’t know about bears but the first time my horse ever saw a deer he almost climbed a tree!
I live in the mountains of Pennsylvania – all we have are black bears – and I’ve seen 'em several times aboard my arab. It’s NBD, horse trucks on, bear ignores us. I suspect my horse has seen bears in the pasture or near, so is not a novice about the bear thing.
I think I would have had a heart attack and fallen off the horse right then and there. I’m glad you were able to ride away w/out incident!
[QUOTE=whichchick;8625102]
I live in the mountains of Pennsylvania – all we have are black bears – and I’ve seen 'em several times aboard my arab. It’s NBD, horse trucks on, bear ignores us. I suspect my horse has seen bears in the pasture or near, so is not a novice about the bear thing.[/QUOTE]
Same here- central PA. Horses don’t seem to mind and neither do the bears, they just wander off. I would be a bit more nervous if I saw a cub because momma could get cranky.
The only time I’ve truly got run away with was when my mare saw/heard/smelled a bear
- it was a brief accelerations, but she wanted outta there in a hurry.
At a safe distance we saw him scurry away.
I’ve seen a bear on the trails. My horse was a little looky into the woods and I do trust his senses very much, but he wasn’t worried enough about it to want to high-tail it out of there. Sure enough, as our ride went on the bear came out of the trees and crossed our path. It was actually not a big deal and very interesting! The bear pretty much paid us no mind.
We see deer all the time. We regularly flush ducks out of our irrigation ditch and they go flying away. Last week we made a game out of it. The water just got turned on so it was the first time this year that the ducks were there and they gave him a startle. So we chased them. They’d fly up the ditch to another spot and we’d trot on up and when we flushed them, we’d “chase” them again. Did that a few times and it was fun.
We regularly see deer. Have been trailed by coyote. See lots of bunnies on a regular basis and just yesterday gave a snake the hairy eyeball as it slithered across our path.
Always shocking to see such big creatures! We only have black bears here, they scurry away as fast as they can! One time I saw a brown shape ahead, and started loudly talking to make sure it heard us. Coming around the corner the bear finally looked up, it must have been concentrating and didn’t hear us! But we were far enough away and non-threatening. (Don’t assume bear bells will help). I’ve only been worried one time when I saw two cubs climbing a tree…and no momma bear in sight. We hightailed it outta there!
I love the experience of seeing nature while we explore the trails. Coyotes, turkeys to chase, deer, a rare sighting of a bobcat, but the worst are the darn quail, exploding out of bushes!
I was riding my gelding alone and heard a noise. There was a bear just off the trail, at an intersection. Talked loudly and went back the way I came, but ended up turning around, still talking loudly, and headed the way I wanted to go.
Another time I was riding home with my brother and it was getting dark. We heard something crashing through the woods, definitely not a deer. It sounded like it followed us briefly, but we just yelled louder and picked up the pace a little.
A friend and I had one in front of us on the trail as we were headed home. It was in no hurry to get out of our way. Finally it wandered off the trail and we carefully continued on.
I only worry because you never know if cubs will be around.
We are bound to have deer or grouse or ducks startle the horses at some point. Twice I’ve encountered skunks, and they are in no hurry to move along.
Awesomesauce! I’ve had 5 bear encounters, over a dozen cougar, countless coyotes and a few bobcat. The horses’ reactions range from not caring --just another dog–to alerting. You’re quite safe on a brave horse–though now that I have a 73 pound dog instead of my prior 100 pounder, the pooch has definitely been hunted. 2 days ago, I was riding w/ a buddy who’d also brought her 2 pooches, maybe 50 pounders. Coyotes were grouping, hoping for one of the dogs. We rode out of there at a careful walk w/ the dogs close in.
Yes, and my gelding was considerably less scared of them than he is of cows, weirdo horse.
It was while camping near Ottawa, ON. We saw them at a distance mostly… but coming back from one long ride, someone comes up and says “DID YA SEE THAT BEAR THAT CAME OUT OF THE WOODS JUST IN FRONT OF YOU!?” Um, no, thankfully.
My guy was definitely speedier than my friend’s horse, so I told her if we saw any bears it was everyone for themselves :lol:
While this isn’t an actual encounter, I have another horse and bear story. One of my current horses has been known to “tell” me that something unusual has been on the driveway. He’s a bit of a doofus, but I’ve learned that when he stops and sniffs the gravel, and gets kind of wary about it, I should check my game cameras to see what has been there. So far, every single time he has done that, I find that one of our resident bears has gone by (my game cams are set up on the driveway, near our gate, and it serves as a regular wildlife corridor for all sorts of critters). The last time was about a year ago, and imagine my surprise to find not one bear, but FOUR had been there the night before (video proof, just because it is awesome)!
[QUOTE=kasjordan;8625209]
Same here- central PA. Horses don’t seem to mind and neither do the bears, they just wander off. I would be a bit more nervous if I saw a cub because momma could get cranky.[/QUOTE]
Ditto. Don’t mind seeing Bears, but prefer not to see Bears with Cubs. Cute as they are, Momma is a whole lot more aggressive when she has cubs.
Have encountered a momma bear crossing in front of our line of 6 horses, and then 4 cubs ran after her. it was amazing that she had 4 cubs, and that they all ignored us and kept on going. Horses were like, " whatever" .
[QUOTE=fallenupright;8632256]
Yes, and my gelding was considerably less scared of them than he is of cows, weirdo horse.[/QUOTE]
This cracked me up! I’ve never encountered a bear, but I frequently ride behind a local zoo (Exotic Feline Breeding Compound) and I can actually see the tigers from behind the fence. None of the horses has ever gotten nervous. Always seems odd to me.
I have a large resident bear. We see him on the game camera. He must not think much of us, as he leaves a big pile of scat 10ft from the back door quite regularly.
We have black bears all through the suburbs, some deer, and coyotes, raccoons and skunks all through the city. There are resident black bears in the park next to our boarding stables; some years they are more visible than other years, but they are there all the time. They roam close to the barns at night, but in the daytime I’ve only seen them a couple of times at a distance.
I’ve only ridden in bear country once, in Flagstaff, AZ about a month ago. I was a little nervous putting my horse to bed when we went camping as she was staring out into the woods and looked really concerned. What I am afraid of though is cougars, I’ve heard a lot of horror stories about cougars and trail riding. Ironically, a cougar/mountain lion is my favorite animal, I just hope I don’t come across one! I most commonly see coyotes when I’m out riding.
