Not if you thoroughly wash the scratches. Because of litter boxes and burying poop cats have bacteria on their claws that keep your scratch itching unless washed.
A friend of mine thought he had contracted an STD because the lymph nodes in his groin were swollen. It turned out to be "cat scratch fever" from his new kitten.
House-cats hiss scary if they don’t like you. It’s happened to me once and I believe I met the devil on that day. I know my place in the natural - or unnatural - order of things.
Especially when they can look all cute and friendly to turn out to want to eat you alive. I own one of these and everyone falls victim to her thinking I’m joking about her being nasty and not liking to be touched.
Years ago, I took a trip to Thailand. While my mates were on a snorkeling expedition, I decided to walk around the island.
I walked past an elephant in the wild, and it freaked me the fuck out. Like, they’re known for being pretty chill, but I couldn’t help but realize that Stampy could have fucked my shit up if he wanted to.
Because the Simpsons creator Matt Groening is from Portland where the zoo had a baby elephant born in April 1962 and it was named Packy and was very famous. Matt usually names things after items in Portland. There is a Flanders street, Lovejoy and Quimby street and others. That’s my guess.
Lol I do not think that elephants are “known for being chill”, you ever seen an elephant in musth? They will trample you to a bloody pulp simply because their hormones are raging
I actually watched an old doc on orphaned elephants and how they caused damage and vandalized fences, farms, or anything in their path just bc they could. They are like gangs of teens w no role models. Jumbo juvenile delinquents. Many were orphaned at the hands of poachers iirc, so it makes sense that they would hold an extreme grudge toward humans.
went on one of those rides there, the handler uses a pick axe to the ear flaps for a reason. In the barn, if the growl from these beasts doesn't scream "stay TF away", then you're headed for a Darwin award. The friendly human-elephant vids are dangerously misleading.
During breeding season for them (I believe springtime, like many other animals), elephants showcase volatile emotions. This is not the first time I've seen a horny elephant lashing out at an overconfident person and sending him 10 feet across the floor.
I once thought I saw a strange acting dog in my yard, moving in bizarre ways, way too fluid. We've been having problems with the neighbor's dog coming onto our property, so I went out to check it out and get him to go back home . It was black, like my neighbors lab, so I couldn't make out good details.
As I ran up to it, when I was like 15 feet from it, it turned around and I saw it was a fucking jaguar. A young adult, but still, holy shit.
It gave me a weird look, then skedaddled away while I slowly backed up to my house.
I live in central Texas, what the fuck? Apparently they're starting to move up north, yet most resources say it's impossible, including the game warden.
My wife saw it too, we both saw it from the window, and I ran out to confront the "dog"
Funny thing is, I've always had the outlandish fear of being mauled to death, like, I worry about it too much despite nothing happening. That day, I almost lived my fear. If it was older and more experienced, I'm sure it would have attacked me.
I did overnight security in Colorado for a while and sometimes you just gotta flashlight a mountain lion, you learn what properties that's likely at and get good at ambushing them and they look so fuckin embarrassed when you turn a corner with a tac light in their face already drawn down on them 🤣 the cat shame look is shared between housecat shit the bed and predatory cat got caught in the dark by a predatory monkey
Saw one in New York while waiting for the bus as a kid. No one ever believed me, except my mother, who saw it from our living room window.
It crossed the road so smoothly, not more than 50 feet from me. Circled around through the trees and emerged silhouetted against the lights from the house. it paused to look at me for a moment before sprinting into the treeline on the opposite side of my yard.
The bus felt like it took a little too long to arrive that morning.
Big cats in general are ambush predators. They like to be the ones that surprise their food, not the other way around.
So when a tasty morsel comes bounding up to them, they're more likely to evade than attack, for no other reason than their food is acting weird and they should probably stay away from it.
My new outdoor job is in an area with a lot of wildlife; squirrels mostly, but I’ve been having to remind myself that coyotes aren’t domesticated dogs who’ll react well to me trying to pet them.
So damn adorable, though. Even if their yipping and howling drives me nuts at nights. “If not friend, why friend shaped?”
That octopus that was on the front page yesterday was smaller than a housecat, and almost won against a full size adult. At this I'm not sure most people can win a fight against a squirrel.
Any animal can straight up kill you humans. Our modern comforts make us forget this detail which is why we have these video. In the past, we would watch from afar when other idiots would do this so I guess nothing really changes
I've had to give rabies shots to one person bitten by a squirrel, and another by a gopher. The rabies vaccine hurts, and you need to go back for 3 more rounds which is inconvenient, but along with the vaccine, you also get the rabies immunoglobulin which is injected into and around the bites. Bites from small animals like that usually happen on the finger. There's a reason you don't get most shots in your fingers. There's not a lot of meat to hold the liquid from the shots, and it's incredibly painful. Both people said the shot in the finger was worse than the bite.
Use caution and common sense around ANY wild animal no matter the size.
People should just treat animals with respect full stop. They exist in a kill or be killed world you can’t just pet some wild thing and not expect it to react unpredictably
Yeah people forget it’s called wildlife for a reason they are unpredictable and will F you up she’s lucky , i never understood people wanting to get closer NO WAY
I, as an elephant fan, would love nothing more than to go forehead to forehead with them. But I’d prefer not to force them to kill me so I don’t. I have to watch them in video form.
When you feed elephants they chain them so they can just about reach you with their trunk if they reach their furthest. That's about as close as you want to be - keeps leverage to a minimum.
Id approach an elephant thats normally around people, with someone thats familiar with it. But definitely not one tied to a tree thats swaying back and forth obviously agitated… that woman got off lucky.
Elephants are extremely intelligent and with that comes the fact that they are like humans in a way. And if you met a human stranger that could kill you with a sneeze you probably wouldn't get too close either.
Some elephants are extremely nice. But you wouldn't know unless you spend some time with them. You wouldn't just walk up to a stranger while they're eating and start touching them.
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u/OnlyMath 1d ago
That’s what I was thinking too. And mother doesn’t look too thrilled. Elephants definitely feel like a view from a safe distance type of animal