NEBO, N.C., June 3 (UPI) -- A woman vacationing in North Carolina said her close encounter with a bear got uncomfortably close when the predator sniffed her shoulder and licked her neck.

Kristen Jones, who was visiting Lake James from her home in Knoxville, posted photos to Facebook showing a bear she said came up behind her while she was watching the sunrise and doing yoga on the shore of the lake on May 26.


Jones said she initially thought the animal behind her was a neighbor's dog.

"Something sniffed my shoulder, and then I felt something wet along my neck and ear, reached up to pet the dog, felt weird, turned around, and it was not a dog. It was a bear," Jones told WJZY-TV.

"I stumbled backwards into the water and he ran up the hill. So much for finally being off blood pressure medicine," Jones wrote on Facebook.

Jones said she realized after the fact that the bear's tongue didn't feel like a dog's.

"Something didn't feel right... it felt prickly and sharp," she told WCNC-TV.

The woman captured a short video of the bear before it disappeared from view.

"Hey bear, where are you going?" Jones says in the video. "You just scared the [expletive] out of me."

Jones told WBTV she called her parents after the incident "like all children do."

"That's right. When it comes to being licked by a bear, I am still a child," she said.

Jones said her family has owned the house on Lake James since 1983, but this is the first time anyone has ever seen a bear near the property.