He would alert me by his change in behaviour.....people who spend a lot of time with dogs learn to recognize these signs. Just by the way he smells the air I can tell if a bear is near. Houndsmen experience the same thing with their dogs. They can easily determine the freshness of a track by the dog's behaviour or if indeed a cat or bear is near. Dogs are pretty amazing animals....especially in the right hands.

The law and training would stop them chasing. We already have birds dogs running free...what stops them? How about cougar hounds? Considering pack dogs are typically at heel unlike the other two examples that are currently legal, it seems far less likely that the pack dogs would would engage in the activities you pointed out. If they did, the owners could be charged......it works everywhere else.......including here with bird and cougar dogs. What's to stop a lab or redbone from chasing a martin or deer? Training..... What stops my border collie from chasing cows on his own...training.....pretty simple actually...

There's nothing ground breaking here...we already have dogs accompanying hunters in Alberta.....this is just another use.

The fact that you are alerted to the presence of a bear earlier or that the dog scent keeps them away seems proof enough to me that it could save a bear's life. Perhaps you just missed that in my earlier posts.