>>5852845I mean some animals, when hungry, will only weigh up whether you're more convenient to kill than the next nearest food source. Others, once tamed, will not even consider that and will ask you for food or go hunt somewhere else, unless something's really wrong and they're going crazy. Obviously everything can happen but for some animals it is much more exceptional than for others.
Cats, for example, are notoriously instinct-driven. Housecats rarely attack humans just due to the size difference but they still sometimes do, and as far as I know big cats are not safe to be around unrestricted, even tamed and friendly ones (and though this may just be an urban legend, but I've heard for example it's never even safe to sleep with a big cat, even if you've raised it its whole life).
Dogs can snap but it's much much rarer, and a well-trained dog kept in good disipline and well cared for should be no danger (for the vast majority of breeds). The amount of discipline needed varies a lot between e.g. a labrador and a german shepherd, but basically if you take care of it and it doesn't catch rabies you can almost always be basically safe.
So I'm just wondering where bears fall on the spectrum, whether it's more like a big lion that's only safe in controlled environments once well fed or a big dog that's only dangerous in particularly extreme and unfavourable environments.