VIDEO: Family dog swoops in to save six-year-old from charging bear

TORRINGTON, Connecticut (KTUU) - It happened so fast.

“We were getting ready to go to a party at my sister’s house,” Jeffrey Tazzara recalled of that fateful Fourth of July morning.

As Tazzara stood in the garage of his Torrington, Connecticut home, he suddenly heard his eleven-year-old dog, Bella, perk up.

“I just heard my dog give a serious bark, and turned around from loading up the car to see my son standing in front of me and a juvenile black bear running in his direction,” Tazzara said.

As six-year-old Colton Tazzara stood directly in the sights of the bear, Bella leapt into action.

“We have a lot of black bears that come around to rummage through the trash,” Tazzara said. “But never anything like that.”

Bella escorted the bear off the property.

“She probably chased the bear up a tree or something,” Tazzara theorized — giving Colton a chance to dart away to safety.

“I checked her over, you know, head to paw, and not a scratch on her,” Tazzara reported. “Just a big smile and a wagging tail.”

Colton, for his part, was equally unfazed.

“He was pretty nonchalant about it all,” his father said. “He was like, ‘yeah, it was scary. I had the bear running at me and just turned and ran.’”

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