What kind of a man wrestles a bear? The kind who loves his dog

If you’ve ever had a good dog, you can probably understand what makes Bill Vagts tick.

Vagts jumped on a black bear in the woods near Isabella, Minn., on Tuesday and wrestled it until it let go of Darla, his 30-pound corgi.

“He had his jaws on her stomach and her throat. … Her eyes were as big as saucers,” he tells the Star Tribune’s Paul Walsh.

“I run toward the bear on his right and grab the bear around the neck with both of my arms and pulled him up off my dog.”

Because?

“I love that dog.”

There it is. What more does anyone need to know?

Vagts says he’s never been afraid of black bears and in the past they’ve always run away from him, which seems like good advice if you’re a black bear in Isabella. You don’t sleep on Bill Vagts.

The bear that Vagts took on is dead, shot by a conservation officer after it attacked two construction workers at a nearby camp.

Authorities are trying to figure out why the bear wasn’t hibernating.