California Teen Speaks About Viral Clip of Her Protecting Dogs From Bear

Morinico said she heard her dogs barking when she went over to quiet them when she made the discovery. “I go to tell them to stop and when I go over there to see what they’re barking at, I’m like, That’s a funny-looking dog,” she said, per BuzzFeed News. She said she felt compelled to help after noticing the bear picking up the smallest dog of the group.

“I go over to the bear, I look it in the eyes, and the first thing I think to do is push it. Push a bear. Push an apex predator, she said. As the video shows, Morinico didn’t push the bear hard, but just enough to make the animal lose its balance, and buy her enough precious time to wrangle her dogs, and avoid the bear’s possible retaliation.

Luckily, Morinico only sustained a scraped knee and a sprained finger.

“I felt a mixture of shock and a little proud of her because of how brave she is,” her cousin Brenda Lopez Rincon, who posted the video, told BuzzFeed News. “We immediately told her to NEVER do that again.”

Lopez Rincon said she was shocked at the sight of Morinico’s heroics because she “normally wouldn’t hurt a fly,” but took the circumstance into consideration, adding, “She loves those dogs very much!”