- A TikTok clip posted online shows a wild black bear, with two cubs in tow, attempting to enter a California woman’s walled yard and tussling with her dogs
- Seventeen-year-old Hailey Morinico rushes to her dogs’ rescue in a true fight-or-flight moment in Bradbury, Ca.
- In a brave move, the teen pushes the fully grown bear off of her yard wall before collecting her pets and ushering them inside
- Commenters on the TikTok clip, which garnered 53.2k likes in eight hours, noted that both the mama bear and woman were just protecting their respective fur babies
- In a follow-up TikTok video Morinico shows off her injuries from the encounter, and says she suffered a sprained finger and scraped knee
A Californiateen 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.
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.
Hailey Morinico, the ‘mother’ and rescuer of her dogs recounted the incident, and showed off her injuries from her face-off
‘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.
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.
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.
