Yes it is true. The kind of adventure one doesn’t experience everyday, but if you put yourself out there, these stories do happen. That the dogs welcomed me in their pack, that, I am sure. That the dogs defended me against the incursions of a bear… that, I will never really know. It was what the food store guy suggested.

However, I did consider his words plausible because two days earlier, while I was hiking near Brasjov, alone, I saw three young guys, hikers too, running in the opposite direction shouting to me to run with them, which I did. They had just been face to face with a bear… I didn’t see the bear... But, many locals were complaining about bears coming down the mountains to seek food in domestic trash bins, and there were signs of caution for hikers posted at Brasjov's forest trails entry points.