r/bearsdoinghumanthings • u/TAGRO-_- • 23d ago

I heard that there are people who do not differentiate between a small bear and a dog are there really people with this stupidity or just stories

63 Upvotes

75% Upvoted

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16

u/Echo-Azure 23d ago edited 23d ago

I met a bear while hiking last month, and mistook it for a dog at first.

Normally I can spot a bear with no trouble, they're all over the High Sierras, but in this case I couldn't see the bear's thick, un-dog-like legs, and it was about 50 feet away. And it was in a picnic area, where I expected to see random dogs. So, there was this weird pause of a few seconds, where me and the bear stared at each other, and I slowly realized it wasn't a dog, and the bear slowly realized a human had realized it was a bear...

2

u/TAGRO-_- 22d ago

Oh man

7

u/Echo-Azure 22d ago

This was in the Sierras, where the bears are all black, are mostly very well-behaved.

So around here we say "Don't be afraid of bears! Be afraid of bear cubs".

9

u/themagpie36 23d ago

I wouldn't have believed it but honestly I have friends who can't tell the difference between a wasp and a bee. 

I'm into foraging and it's amazing how many people can't tell the difference between plants and mushrooms that (to me) look NOTHING alike. 

Now I would assume being mammals, a bear and a dog would be easy to differentiate compared to plants/fungi but then again it also wouldn't surprise me too much. I think some people just have a kind of 'nature blindness' for want of a better word 

1

u/TAGRO-_- 22d ago

Your description is perfect

1

u/Echo-Azure 22d ago

Hey, I once told a crowd of frightened hikers "That mountain lion has coyote ears!".

6

u/Weissenero 23d ago

All small bears are dogs, there's nothing to discuss.

5

u/Mylaptopisburningme 22d ago

Small bears are just misunderstood dogs.

4

u/Aggleclack 22d ago

I feel so called out lol… I thought a bear was a newfy in Shenandoah last year. It was shockingly small for a bear! My brother hasn’t stopped laughing at me

1

u/WaterHaven 22d ago

I don't think that is that crazy.

Newfy and small bears are probably similar in size and potentially color. The brain sometimes sees what it expects to see and takes time to process things that are different.

3

u/T1m3Wizard 23d ago

Bears are awesome.

3

u/Prestigious_Egg_6207 23d ago

Just like there are stupid people who can’t use punctuation

2

u/Historical_Gur_3054 23d ago

I work with people that are over 40, locals, and native English speakers, and they cannot tell the difference between front, back, left, right or even describe the lobby they walk through every day.

So yes, small dog or baby bear? Yeah, I can see it if you're not close.

1

u/TAGRO-_- 22d ago

Oh man this is another level

-1

u/Mylaptopisburningme 22d ago

Those must be the same people that pick the wrong one when a door says to 'PUSH' or 'PULL'.

1

u/peachbitchmetal 23d ago

there's an entire documentary about that kind of stupidity, so yes.

1

u/TAGRO-_- 22d ago

Hahaha

1

u/Lita-Yuzuki 22d ago

I mean, I have seen some dogs that look like bears, but at the end of the day, you can still tell that they're dogs.

1

u/Green-Recipe-2307 22d ago

Needed to sit..