Cornwall labrador maimed in bear attack

Charlie the labrador retriever must wear a cone while he recovers from a bear attack on Wednesday, July 17.

Phyllis Nauts

Cornwall labrador maimed in bear attack

CORNWALL — An eight-year-old black labrador retriever named Charlie was mauled by a bear in his yard on the evening of Wednesday, July 17.

Phyllis Nauts, his owner, said she did not hear or see the fight and only realized what had happened when Charlie came inside for mealtime.

“When it was time for dinner he came into the house and didn’t seem interested, which, if you know anything about labs, is unusual,” she said. “He collapsed on the kitchen floor. As I petted him I realized there was blood on his flank.”

Nauts said the bite marks were deep and roughly the width of a dime. Charlie could not make it upstairs to sleep, so Nauts arranged dog beds in the kitchen and slept with him on the floor.

The next morning she took Charlie to Millerton-based veterinarian Caroline Cannon, who put him on a combination of antibiotics, pain killers, rabies boosters, and tender love and care. She also condemned Charlie to a cone collar while he healed.

As of Friday, July 19, Nauts reported her beloved lab is on the mend. “He’s chipper and up and about.”

Charlie the black lab was bitten by a bear July 17. Bite marks on both flanks left deep wounds in the dog.Phyllis Nauts

Nauts said she has seen bears on her property for many years but has never experienced an incident like this.

“I’m concerned there may be a rogue bear out there,” she said.

Nauts reported the attack to Cornwall Town Hall and Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection.

Latest News

Employment Opportunities

LJMN Media, publisher of The Lakeville Journal (first published in 1897) and The Millerton News (first published in 1932), is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit news organization.

We seek to help readers make more informed decisions through comprehensive news coverage of communities in Northwest Connecticut and Eastern Dutchess County in New York.

Keep ReadingShow less
Selectmen suspend town clerk’s salary during absence

North Canaan Town Hall

Photo by Riley Klein

NORTH CANAAN — “If you’re not coming to work, why would you get paid?”

Selectman Craig Whiting asked his fellow selectmen this pointed question during a special meeting of the Board on March 12 discussing Town Clerk Jean Jacquier, who has been absent from work for more than a month. She was not present at the meeting.

Keep ReadingShow less
Dan Howe’s time machine
Dan Howe at the Kearcher-Monsell Gallery at Housatonic Valley Regional High School.
Natalia Zukerman

“Every picture begins with just a collection of good shapes,” said painter and illustrator Dan Howe, standing amid his paintings and drawings at the Kearcher-Monsell Gallery at Housatonic Valley Regional High School. The exhibit, which opened on Friday, March 7, and runs through April 10, spans decades and influences, from magazine illustration to portrait commissions to imagined worlds pulled from childhood nostalgia. The works — some luminous and grand, others intimate and quiet — show an artist whose technique is steeped in history, but whose sensibility is wholly his own.

Born in Madison, Wisconsin, and trained at the American Academy of Art in Chicago, Howe’s artistic foundation was built on rigorous, old-school principles. “Back then, art school was like boot camp,” he recalled. “You took figure drawing five days a week, three hours a day. They tried to weed people out, but it was good training.” That discipline led him to study under Tom Lovell, a renowned illustrator from the golden age of magazine art. “Lovell always said, ‘No amount of detail can save a picture that’s commonplace in design.’”

Keep ReadingShow less