Writer's Block: Scaredy cat

[packbat]

What animal frightens you most, and why? View other answers

Not-quite-copout answer: human beings.
Backup answer: dogs.

Why human beings? In general, most animals which are dangerous to me personally I can avoid simply by (a) living in town and (b) using a bear bag in the woods. (Sure, there's a little complexity in (a) with respect to mice et al., but that's only a little complexity.) However, there are human beings everywhere, and if there aren't, they can get there. Worse, human beings have all sorts of death-machines running all over the place (cf. cars), plus when they decide to hurt you they have tools and can get mad creative.

Why dogs? Because (1) they run up to you, (2) they're usually either large, crazy, or both, and (3) they're "friendly" in this really weird way - it puts pressure on you. A cat can chill out on its own - sure, it might enjoy being petting, it might rub against your legs if you happen to be convenient, but there's a real sense that if you simply left it could do its own thing and be fine. Dogs don't give that impression. Plus, there's the whole thing with the humans, where they will play with the dogs, throw stuff, talk at them, as if normal people would all do the same. Dogs aren't people - how are you supposed to talk to them?

Anyway, wrapup: humans are most dangerous to me personally, dogs are most creepy to me personally, and the other creatures which might qualify are safely far away.

Comments

[explodingbat.livejournal.com]

I grew up with a border collie, and so probably *do* think of dogs as being people, albeit very stupid ones that can smell fear. Thing to remember about dogs is that our ancestors bred them to think of humans as a kind of Super Dog, so if you just act like you outrank them things'll be fine. Talking to them may seem strange given that they can't speak English, but they (at least seem to) comprehend quite a lot. I'm not even sure that cats understand the concept of *names*. Oh and if a dog rolls on it's back it's a sign of submission: it's not saying it wants a belly rub, it's saying that it trusts you not to try and bite it's throat out.

Cats disturb me slightly because of the way people interact with them. Most domestic cats seem to live in a state of enforced kittenhood, and as the commenter above said the body language is weird (took me ages to work out what was up with the squinting gesture). Also of course there's the toxoplasma gondii and obvious psychopathy.

The creatures that scare me the most would have to be birds (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wfvEgWINUFc), because (a) some of them are tool users and (b) they look like tiny dinosaurs. Then again I'm probably suffering from island tameness: we wiped out anything remotely dangerous centuries ago.
Creepy crawlies also freak me out (my theory is that people are hard-wired to dislike small scuttling bitey things, because bites may get infected), though spiders are cool.

[packbat.livejournal.com]

Exposing the neck - got it. I'll try to keep these strategies in mind.

(Hmm ... somehow, the idea of a sociopathic animal doesn't bother me that much. Unless I'm, like, paralyzed and it walks up and eats my face. That's a little scary.)

Be sure that you do!

[explodingbat.livejournal.com]

And never trust terriers. Big dogs are usually friendly, but the ratters are psychotic.

Re: Be sure that you do!

[packbat.livejournal.com]

The rule I heard was: the further it gets from the basic wolf, the greater the likelihood of ... undesirable characteristics. Which pretty well correlates with what you just said. Thanks for the tip!