A 6-year-old German shepherd named Mia was rudely interrupted while trying to do her business during a quick break from a road trip with her owners as tourists in Yellowstone National Park pulled over to gawk at her, apparently thinking she was a bear.
At least six vehicles full of tourists stopped for roughly five minutes to look at Mia in a "lightly wooded area” and threaten to cause a bear jam, Arizona resident Lulu Skladanowski told Cowboy State Daily.
Her husband, Victor, said he was willing to cut the tourists some slack. Given Mia's location and the light filtering through the trees at the time, he can see how they mistook his dog for a bear.
"She looked very much like a small bear. She looks bigger than she is, and she's already a pretty big dog," he told Cowboy State Daily.
Mia is a purebred German shepherd with a long, dark-colored coat and weighs about 95 pounds, Lulu said.
Quick Break Becomes 'Bear Jam'
The Skladanowskis were on their way home from a weekslong road trip in their Sprinter van that included driving all the way to Alaska.
Early on July 12 in Yellowstone, they were looking for a place to pull over, make some breakfast and give Mia a chance to get out and stretch her legs.
They found the perfect spot — a small pullout with no other vehicles in it, Lulu said.
Dogs must remain on leashes or tethers in Yellowstone, so Lulu took Mia to a small stand of trees near the van and tethered her to one of the trees.
"She had the urge to poop," and proceeded to do so while Lulu returned to the van.
"Pretty soon, cars are stopping along the road, as if people were trying to see something in the trees," Lulu said.
At first, she and Victor were perplexed as to what the tourists could be pulling over to see. Had some wild animal strolled up to their van, she wondered?
Then she realized her dog was still outside and started to become alarmed until, in the next instant, she realized Mia was the star of the show.
"There was Mia, outside, pooping, and they were all looking in her direction," Lulu said.
'When Do Deer Turn Into Elk?'
Retired park ranger Greg Jackson laughed when he heard Mia's story.
He told Cowboy State Daily that he'd heard some strange stories during his career, but nothing like a pooping German shepherd being mistaken for a bear and causing a jam.
"I don't think I've got one (story) of people mistaking a dog for anything else," Jackson said.
He's the former deputy chief of the National Park Service Division of Law Enforcement, Security and Emergency Services. He now runs NPS Park Ranger News.
Still, Mia's story "doesn't surprise me," he said. "Not everyone is a wildlife expert."
Jackson added that sometimes even the experts get fooled.
He recalled an incident in the Santa Monica Mountains in California when "we impounded a dog and took it to the local animal shelter."
"The animal control officer at the shelter told us, 'That's not a dog, that's a wolf,'" Jackson said.
Apparently, somebody in the area had been breeding wolf-dog hybrids and one of the animals escaped, he said.
It also isn't uncommon for tourists to ask strange questions about wildlife, Jackson said.
"A fairly common one we would get was, 'When do the deer turn into elk?'" he said.
Mountain Lion Snacks
Rural Park County resident and retired Forest Service and National Park Service ranger Richard Jones told Cowboy State Daily that he also hadn't heard of any dogs being mistaken for bears doing what bears do in the woods during his career.
He noted that he has "a long buffalo-skin coat, and I've been mistaken for a bear from a distance when I was wearing it."
One strange wildlife report involved some people who were eating at a picnic table.
"They saw what appeared to be a dog walking up to them, and when it got right up next to them, it turned out to be a young wolf," he said.
Jones said he was glad to hear that the Skladanowskis kept Mia under control and close to them.
He recalled instances while he was working in Olympic National Park that didn't turn out to be funny the way Mia's story did.
"People would tether their dog to a tree and then go off and leave the dog,” he said. "And they'd come back and find the lead and the collar, but no dog. Because while they were gone, a mountain lion had come and gotten the dog."
Mark Heinz can be reached at mark@cowboystatedaily.com.
