Good dog Eli

Most days my buddy Eli and I go walking in the Beaver Lodge Lands.
Usually our progress is pretty routine, and we do the circuit without much incident, busy in our individual ways, but occasionally there are surprises. The other day, for example, Eli managed to spook a whole flock of mallards, which rose up, complaining loudly, from where they had been busy on the new pond just off the Butterfly trail.
This gave both of us a good deal of pleasure.
Because Eli wears a bear bell when he's in the Lands these days, he doesn't get this kind of thrill as often as he used to.
About a month ago, pre-bell, just as the huckleberries were at their best, we were on our usual route up from the ERT road to the Dogwood end of the Pony trail. Eli was, as usual, quite a ways ahead. Suddenly I heard some crashing in the bush, and then Eli barking. I'd seen a couple of bears while running on the ERT road in that area earlier in the week, so I wasn't very surprised when I got there to see a substantial black bear, sitting in a clearly defensive position. Eli was doing a little semi-circular dance, keeping about 20 feet from the bear and barking animatedly. The bear was watching.
I walked up to Eli, grabbed his collar, put his leash on, and quickly walked with him to the beginning of the Pony trail, a hundred meters along. Behind us I could hear the bear escaping the area just as quickly as he could.
Eli wasn't at all interested in revisiting this experience, for when I removed his leash a little further on, he stuck close to me for the next bit of the trail.