A California teen girl got the scare of her life after a bear attempted to break into her back yard, but she managed to shove the wild animal off her wall in a move to save her dogs.
In the clip posted Tuesday by TikToker bakedlikepie, a bear is seen walking atop the yard’s wall at a home in Bradford, California, with cubs in tow, while a group of pet dogs attempt to fight it off.
The wild animal paws menacingly at one of the dogs while her cubs scamper away, right as 17-year-old Hailey Morinico rushes to her dogs’ rescue.
A bear menaces a group of pet dogs in an unlikely standoff in California. The animal appears to be protecting her cubs as the pack of pups attempt to scare the mama bear off
17-year-old Hailey Morinico rushed to rescue her dogs after a bear climbed onto a back yard wall. Morinico said she intervened to, ‘protect my kids,’ in a TikTok video she posted after the video of her rescue went viral
Morinico said she intervened to, ‘protect my kids,’ in a TikTok video she posted after the video of her rescue went viral.
The pet dogs attempt to scare off the bear, but to no avail – until she intervenes.
She said she heard the dogs barking and went to tell them to stop, but when she did so she was hit with a rude surprise.
‘When I go over there to see what they’re barking at I’m like, “ok that’s a funny looking dog.”‘
In a true fight-or-flight moment, the teenager daringly approaches the fully grown adult black bear and pushes it off the wall before immediately gathering her pets and going inside.
‘I go over to the bear and I look it in the eyes, and the first thing I think to do is push it push a bear, push an apex predator man,’ Morinico recounted.
In a true fight-or-flight moment, the teenager daringly approaches the fully grown adult black bear and pushes it off the wall before immediately gathering her pets and going inside. She showed off her injuries on Instagram and TikTok
She said the bear had gone to pick up her smallest, Valentina.
‘She’s the baby and as her slave I have to protect her,’ she remarked, adding that she suffered a sprained finger and scraped knee from the encounter.
‘To be honest I don’t think I pushed her that hard, I just pushed her enough to lose her balance,’ the teen recalled.
The dog’s owner, identified only as ‘cousin Hailey’ by TikToker @bakedlikepie, does the unthinkable and shoves the wild bear off of the garden wall in an effort to protect her dogs. Commenters noted how both the bear and woman were simply trying to protect their respective fur babies
The wild scene was captured on surveillance video and posted to TikTok on Tuesday, garnering 53.2k likes and nearly 2.2k comments over an eight-hour period. In this still, the California teen bravely pushes the adult black bear off of her garden wall in a move to protect her pet dogs
Her mother, Citlally Morinico reacted on Facebook, saying her daughter, ‘Just saved our dog with super human strength. For me one of the scariest moments in life.’
‘She sent the video on our family group chat and I just knew people would think it was crazy so I posted it. We did not expect this much of a reaction though!’ her cousin Stephanie Lopez Villalobos, who posted the video of the rescue, told the Daily Mail.
‘She’s a crazy brave 17 year old!’
Several TikTok users noted that the bear was likely protecting her two cubs, who immediately flee the scene upon noticing the dogs.
‘I didn’t see the little cubs in the first video, she was just protecting her babies and so was your cousin,’ a commenter noted.
‘Wow! She’s a fierce mama bear protecting her fur babies,’ Lisa Ramirez wrote of the video, which garnered 53.2k likes and nearly 2.2k comments over an eight-hour period.
Fellow TikTokers noted how fast the woman was able to jump into action to protect her pets, while commending her for bravery and quick-thinking.
‘Can you please post cousin Hailey’s workout routine?’ a commenter named Lexie quipped.
‘You are dog mom of the century,’ another TikToker commented.
‘Kudos to the dog mom, that’s fierce.’
While they are not usually aggressive, black bears can attack humans to protect their cubs or when foraging for food.
Morinico said that in her location bear sightings were common during the summer.