Awwwwww!

This here story may just be the cutest damn thing I've ever based a post on:

A 15-pound cocker spaniel-poodle mix named Pawlee scared off a mother bear and her two cubs Sunday morning after they strayed into his owners' back yard.

Whether his bark was worse than his bite, Pawlee's tactic worked just fine. These three bears got the hint and took off.

"We had just let him out for the morning and he ran into the yard and started barking his head off," owner Fran Osiason said.

Osiason said her 9-year-old son, Jacob, went outside to see what the commotion was about and came running back in to report there were bears in the yard.

She was worried that the mother would come after Pawlee to protect her cubs, but the pugnacious pup, just 8 months old, had other plans.

His barking drove the two cubs up a tree, and they eventually climbed down and hopped over a fence with their mother and retreated into the woods.

Normally, this is the spot where I'd make some kind of snarky joke about someone being a crackhead or a drunk or a whore (or all three) and call them a dumbass, but this is a story about a cute little puppy defending his yard from a bunch of bears. What the hell am I supposed to do with that? I've really painted myself into a corner here.

Oh, hey, that's it! I'm the drunken dumbass here! Saved that one right at the buzzer.