For weeks, a couple in Canada ignored their dog’s odd barking. When they finally investigated, they were surprised to find a furry intruder — a big black bear — making a den under their house.
Crystal Weaver’s bulldog Coco had been “barking like crazy” for weeks at their house in Duncan, British Columbia, she told CTV News in a Jan. 3 article.
“She’s a bit of a silly girl, so we didn’t think too much of it,” Weaver told the Canadian outlet CHEK News.
But then Weaver and her husband heard weird sounds coming from under the deck, she told the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. “We thought maybe some raccoons were having a bit of a party down there.”
Weaver’s husband checked under the deck on Dec. 29 and found himself staring at a big black bear, Weaver said.
“I’ve never seen him move so fast,” she told the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation
A video shared on TikTok by @cocobeansandcrew on Dec. 29 shows the black bear tucked under a deck. From the far corner of the deck, the bear appears unbothered by the attention.
“This black bear thought the space under our deck might be a great place to spend winter,” @cocobeansandcrew wrote in the caption.
“This bear was quite at home. (It) looked at us and curled back up,” the video’s poster wrote in comments.
“I thought it was kind of funny that I ignored (the dog), and she was right about it the whole time,” Weaver told CHEK News.
Weaver told CTV News that they called conservation officers to help scare the bear away. The officers were successful in evicting the bear without issue.
The couple intend to keep the bear away, but their efforts have not been totally successful.
“We have spread cayenne pepper under there in hopes that the odor would definitely deter him from being back, but we will be putting some fencing up on the exposed side now to keep him out of there as well,” Weaver told CHEK News.
Weaver told McClatchy News on Jan. 5 that “the bear came back this morning and we had to once again run it off.” The couple are putting up more fencing to try keeping the animal out for good.
Duncan is on Vancouver Island, British Columbia, and about 50 miles southwest across the water from Vancouver.