Nature Bats Last: post your terrifying animal stories here

That’s an interesting story.

It reminded me of an event in my life. My friend Marty's family also had several horses in addition to the aggressive geese and the german shepherd. My favorite was Frosty, a light gray horse with a dark mane who was very calm. Marty and I rode out properly with saddles a lot together, and Frosty was always the horse he let me choose.

We decided to ride him together bareback in the corral one day when I was twelve. Frosty meandered under a low branch and we both fell off. I fell first and Marty on top of me. I broke my humerus clean through and ended up in the hospital for 3 weeks in traction. Marty and Frosty were both blameless, but the realization that my arm was fucked was terrifying at the time.

Last summer I dived into the bay and hit a leopard shark with my hand. I wasn't particularly terrified but I think he/she was.

My wife had a horse who would regularly run under low branches to unseat her.

somehow I missed remy's astonishing post about the Hannibal Lecter dog, wow

saw that post about the dachsund, my brother had two of them and I didn't like them.

My second favorite dog ever after trixie, the boxer/spaniel mix who was my companion throughout childhood, is a miniature long-haired dachsund who friends care for. She is so shy and sweet. It was hard for her to warm up to me at first, but when she did I fell in love with her, and having her in my lap feels so good

My other friends have a small poodle. She is friendly and always wants to sit next to me on the sofa, but if you touch her under her neck she growls and bites you. I didn't know that at first. When she did it to me it was kind of shocking. It wasn't enough draw blood but it hurt and in the moment she seemed feral. She immediately pushed her head into my side to show remorse though. Her instinctive response and then her realization and reaction were astonishing to me and made me love her more. I have learned not to pet her under her neck

Trixie was scary to look at and the mailman was afraid of her, but she loved humans, never barked or showed any aggression. She would kill cats on sight though, which was kind of freaky

After Trixie died we got a cat, named Girlie Girlie, from the Guru Ram Dass Ashram that my older sister lived in one college summer. When everyone left the Ashram in the Fall she gave her to us. The cat was raised as a vegetarian, having only been fed brewer’s yeast. She was very skinny and was afraid of us at first. We started feeding her meat, and she transformed into a beast! Started going out hunting birds. She growled to warn us away when we put anything with meat into her dish.

She would run and jump into my arms and roll over onto her back to let me pet her, which seemed a very dog-like thing to me for a cat. I loved her so much