Polar bear and sled dog snuggle in unlikely interaction

Two wildlife photographers last November filmed a wild polar bear playing with a sled dog in the far reaches of Canada.

Brittany Semeniuk, who was one of the photographers, told National Geographic that she observed a polar bear approach a sled dog.

“I was worried for the dog,” she said.

Semeniuk said she was surprised when the bear started to play with the dog. The bear could be seen nudging the dog with its nose and the dog rolled over with its paws up. The encounter lasted 15 minutes.

"When the bear left, the dog seemed to be totally fine," Semeniuk said. "[The interaction] was a bit rough because a polar bear doesn't know his own strength."

Interactions with polar bears aren’t always this benign, especially when the animals are hungry. In November 2016, a viral video showed a polar bear apparently petting a chained-up sled dog, but a Canadian news outlet reported soon after that three polar bears killed and ate other dogs from the same area and were then removed, the report said.