We want the dogs to be very aggressive towards the bear.

They need to communicate to it that you know we're coming to get you and you better get moving.

I believe that humans and dogs and bears have had this relationship for a long time The Karelian Bear Dog got its name because select lines of these dogs were able to hunt brown bear The way we train them is as hunting dogs: to find the bear to push it We'll refer to it as hunting because that's how the dogs think about it.

The work that I do with Wind River Bear Institute is both for public safety but also wildlife conservation.

Our motto is: Teach your wildlife well.

Teach them to respect human space you know and respect their space as well and in that way be able to coexist with these animals without having to kill them, remove them, and just have another one move in and do the exact same thing all over again The way the technique works here in a community like Girdwood is: wake up in the morning early and do patrols with the dogs in the back of the truck and they're sniffing out of the back of truck and barking when they sniff bear scent.

So we call that strike dog work Soledad and Mardy both have that kind of rapid barking that's like: bear is here right now you can get out in the ground and work them on leash and thereby we don't need to use other more invasive techniques like collaring the bear, trapping it, putting a collar on it but beyond that we're doing site assessments so looking at sites helping get attractants secure It's not uncommon that we don't see the bears.

That's the great thing about using the dogs is that they can smell the bears and bark and so by doing passes with them in the truck we can develop a map of roughly where the bears are.

Karelian Bear Dog is the best dog for this job for a number of different reasons for one they're brown bear hunting dogs.

The other reason is that they work alone or in pairs so You don't need a big pack of these dogs to do the job.

And another reason is that they're a good temperament with people.

You know that's a huge part of the work is talking to people visiting with kids and talking about their safety and bear awareness oh so it's not only deterrence but actually locating bears Girdwood specifically needs this service because you have a lot of bears.

we also have people and tourism people coming in and out of the community who may or may not be aware of the fact that there are so many bears I grew up in Fairbanks, Alaska.

My folks had sled dogs so I grew up with working dogs you know from a very young age I understood about this relationship that humans dogs and and bears have because of a photograph that my grandpa, Einar Pedersen, had of one of his Greenland dogs who was dancing with a bear is what he told me so Soledad my 10 year old female is the dog that I've worked with for my career.

She's a very serious dog.

She is a matriarch.

She's the lead dog for our programs these days.

Life on the road so then I have my seven-year-old male Rio and I got Rio from Finland when he was three Then we have Mardy who is the daughter of Soledad and Rio.

She's three years old , female.

Hopefully the future of our programs in Alaska, I think people do have a special relationship with dogs.

We'll talk about them as tools, tools for wildlife management.

The truth is they're our family members.

Good boy!