'Most people don't have pets that can kill them,' Jeff 'The Bear Man' Watson observes.
Unless, of course, you're Jeff himself, because he takes care of two brown bears called Bob and Screech at his home in Indiana - only he refuses to call them pets.
'They don’t meet the traditional definition of a pet,' he explained. 'These are wild animals, apex carnivores - and they rule the roost.
'Most people think that if they take a wild animal, and they love it and they treat it just right that somehow you will get it to surrender its natural instincts.
'That will never happen. You can never tame a bear. You can train one but you can never tame one.'
Jeff 'The Bear Man' Watson shares his Indiana home with two adult brown bears, called Bob and Screech, who he adopted from an animal sanctuary that closed down
Jeff shares a bond with the two animals, but is under no illusions about the nature of their relationship. 'They rule the roost,' he said
Taking care of the animals is a full-time job for Jeff, who says one of the biggest struggles of keeping wild animals like Bob and Screech is keeping them entertained
Watson has a history of raising bears that dates back almost three decades, though his obsession with the animals goes right back to childhood.
He got his first bear, a Kodiak cub named Brody, in 1995 while he was recovering from a neurological disease that robbed him of his ability to walk.
After regaining his feet, Watson said somebody gave him the opportunity to raise Brody and he took it, feeding him milk from a bottle for three years.
Watson said: 'He would take nine half-gallon calf bottles at a time. He started off at 8lbs, at a year old he was 400lbs, and a year and a half he was 550lbs.
'When you raise a bear, you become a surrogate mother and they won't leave your side, they go through a lot of separation anxiety.
'This is a lot like a human being, most definitely when they're young they see you as their mother.'
Jeff has an obsession with bears that goes back to childhood, but began raising them almost three decades ago when he took on a Kodiak cub called Brody
Brody became famous and appeared in TV, film and adverts including Energizer batteries and Rice Kirspie Treats. These days Jeff uses his bears to educate people about the animals
Brody went on to
