wrote on Aug 8^th, 2006 at 10:14am:

i ALSO find that a barking dog goes along way in pissing off other campers in the area.  Jan

I'm not so sure about dogs and bears.  About a week ago I met a guy paddling down McEwen creek that had just recently paddled up to a large bear he saw on the shore.  He had a medium sized dog who was yipping at it and  he told me the bear jumped into the water and started swimming toward him.  As in the bear wanted to eat the dog.

I have a good friend I hunt with in The Pas, MB who camps in the bush with his hunting dog (labrador).  On two separate nights the bear jumped on his camper and tried to get in although the dog was barking and growing.  Then the bear tried to ambush the dog in the early morning and nearly caught it.  It was a black bear, just like the kind we have down here.

This tells me that a hungry bear will want to eat a dog.  Maybe the BW/Q bears are docile and not terribly dog-hungry.  But if it was me I wouldn't assume that a dog would scare away a bear, but rather be an enticement to it.