One winter many years ago we were hiking in the woods in Massachusetts (husband & I). My husband owned many acres of land near Beartown State Park, and we would stay at the cabin from time to time. I’m from south Florida, so my nature forte is more like fish and alligators.
It’s dusk, and suddenly we hear some strange loud crunching noises. Something is definitely packing down the snow quite heavily. We couldn’t tell what direction it was coming from.
Just as we hear the crunching, which does sound like it’s coming in our direction as it’s getting a bit louder, Shiloh perks his head up and then turns towards us. He then begins to bolt back to our cabin, and stops to turn and look back at us. He’s looking at us earnestly, like “please follow me.”
Keep in mind this all happened within about a minute - we hear crunching, which is quickly getting louder, dog looks up and then starts running away.
My husband grabs me and ushers me back to the cabin behind our dog, who is still running quickly up the trail but looking back at us periodically to make sure we’re coming. I asked what was happening and he said that it’s likely a bear that perhaps shouldn’t really be out at this time of year, as it was hibernation season and bears shouldn’t be moving onto his land this far - he had someone who helped keep the land who would periodically make sure there weren’t any bear dens being set up for the winter. And that if the bear was on his land it was either sick or hungry, and neither are good options.
Me, I’m like…. So there’s a bear somewhere behind us.
Him: yes.
He said he might not have started moving away so quickly if it weren’t for our dog who started running, as my husband is a bit of a daredevil and might’ve gone closer to investigate further (he races motorcycles, so fear just isn’t in his vocabulary tbh).
Anyhoo, I guess I can say that my dog would care about me if I died because at least he didn’t abandon us lol. He would run, and then look back to urge on forward. I don’t think he had any presence of mind to herd because he was like “we need to get the fuck away from the bear y’all”