Groggily the farmer wandered toward the front door. What time was it anyway? Very early morning, that was for sure. The sun was barely peeping over the eastern horizon, promising another hot summer day. The dogs were sure making a lot of racket for that early.

"Hey..., shut up," he yelled from the front door. The dogs turned to look at their master, growled a few more barks and then were quiet. He turned to stumble back to bed, but before he even made it to the bedroom the dogs resumed their barking. "What the heck’s going on," he grumbled. With all the hurry that a rude awakening could inspire he put on his clothes and grabbed a flashlight. It was almost about time to get up anyway, he reasoned.

"Now just what seems to be the problem with you guys," he said, pointing his flashlight at the dogs.

"Who us," their faces seemed to say as they looked momentarily at their master? Bark, bark, bark means there’s a bear out there!

"Holy moly there’s a bear out there," he said.

"Bark, bark, bark, bark," the dogs said, which means, "Yea that’s what we’ve been trying to tell you for the last half hour, there’s a bear out there, there’s a bear out there, there’s a...."

The astonished farmer woke his wife and daughter, instructing them about the bear’s location, and then called the game warden. Naturally the farmer had to leave a message on the phone recorder because no one was in the warden’s office at that hour.

Since there was irrigation water to set, most of the farmers in the community were waking up. A canal road ran by the place, so area residents were able to see the bear. Soon a congregation of inquisitive residents assembled to gawk at the bear and exchange the latest gossip.

Meanwhile the bear seemed contented to explore the immediate area around the ditch bank, uninterested in the gathering of onlookers. He moved from place to place, pausing now and again to sniff something he found interesting on the ground.

Various wild critters had been known to frequent the area on occasion; and it was not uncommon for area residents to carry rifles in their pickup trucks to defend themselves and their livestock. Most of those firearms just collected dust on the rifle rack in the rear view window, but they were kept there just in case of emergency. An older more respected gentleman from the neighborhood was one of the very first to arrive and had casually placed his rifle on the hood of his pickup truck in case it was suddenly needed.

Finally the game warden and his crew arrived on the scene. After much discussion about how to approach the problem the game warden’s team surrounded the bear. The beast grew more excited, the strange beings had cut off the avenue of escape. After several misses with a tranquilizer gun further exciting the bear, they finally shot it. That scared the bear, and frightened he climbed the nearest tree, cowering in fear.

It might be appropriate to point out that the situation might have been far different. After all, bears have been known to attack people for no apparent reason; and this one had more than enough reasons. But that was not the case. The bewildered bear merely hung on to the tree looking around at everyone until the tranquilizer took effect. Then he promptly fell with a thud to the ground.

Now it might be appropriate to further point out that one of the jobs of the game and fish officials is to protect wildlife, i.e. not let them be injured by falling out of tall trees. Undaunted though by that factor they dragged the bear into a cage on their truck and prepared to leave.

The neighbors had all been watching the fiasco in amazement, occasionally laughing at the humor in the situation. One of the wardens walked over to the older gentleman who was still casually standing by his truck beside his rifle.

"What were you going to do with that gun," the warden inquired directing a scowl to the man?