Dogs are widely viewed as best friends — if not family — by many in Wyoming but a new report analyzing more than 300 bear encounters warned dogs are not your best early warning system or deterrent in bear country.

In at least 27 cases, unleashed dogs created what’s known as a boomerang effect, where dogs run off, encounter a bear and bring it back with them. In the incidents, 70% of dog owners were injured or worse.

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Lana Ciarniello, co-chair of the human-bear conflict expert team for the International Union for the Conservation of Nature and the report's co-author, said people who do decide to bring their pets into wilderness areas are safer if they keep them on a leash.

"Incidents involving unleashed dogs outnumber those involving leashed dogs by almost six to one. So basically, you want that dog on a leash. What we also found is that when dogs were on a leash, there was no human fatalities," Ciarniello reported.

Bear encounters become more likely between July and October during hyperphagia, when animals consume 20,000 calories a day or more before hibernation. Ciarniello pointed out people are safest when they travel in large groups but groups are twice as likely to encounter a bear if a dog is present.

Because encounters can happen in a second, experts advised practicing how to use bear spray in advance and carrying it where you can grab it in an instant. In more than half of the encounters analyzed, dogs actually instigated and provoked bears. Dogs physically engaged with bears 40% of the time and ran away in 20% of incidents.

Ciarniello added 85% of owners who decided to tangle with bears to save their dog suffered injuries. The majority of owners taking on bears were women.

"We found that females were more likely to come to the aid of their dog than males. Sixty-three percent of women went to the aid of their dog and physically engaged with that bear to save their dog," Ciarniello said.

Ciarniello cautioned owners should not expect their canine companion to respond in kind.

"By the way, that wasn't the same way when we looked at the dog. The dog, most of the time just during an attack, they failed to come to their owner's aid," Ciarniello explained.