Wapsi Square Forum

Alkarii wrote:Or you could just carry a gun, make noise when you walk so they aren't startled when they see you, and stand your ground when you do encounter one. Running or acting scared makes them think you're a prey animal, and startling any animal is a good way to get attacked.

I also read that talking to it in a low, monotone voice can help calm the animal, though I don't know if this works on bears. With bears, assuming you have a gun with you, I'd aim at the head, and if it moves closer, start shooting.

I've found that just going on doing whatever you were doing while talking calmly to the critter works, so long as it isn't actively charging at you when you notice it. Bears, leopards, lions, elephants, boars, shrews. . .I've done that with all of them, and they just looked at me, did their version of shrugging, and went on their way while I went on mine. I've never tried it with crocodiles, though, instead just staying clear of them.

Catawampus wrote:

Alkarii wrote:Or you could just carry a gun, make noise when you walk so they aren't startled when they see you, and stand your ground when you do encounter one. Running or acting scared makes them think you're a prey animal, and startling any animal is a good way to get attacked.

I also read that talking to it in a low, monotone voice can help calm the animal, though I don't know if this works on bears. With bears, assuming you have a gun with you, I'd aim at the head, and if it moves closer, start shooting.

I've found that just going on doing whatever you were doing while talking calmly to the critter works, so long as it isn't actively charging at you when you notice it. Bears, leopards, lions, elephants, boars, shrews. . .I've done that with all of them, and they just looked at me, did their version of shrugging, and went on their way while I went on mine. I've never tried it with crocodiles, though, instead just staying clear of them.

I did that with an eight-foot rattlesnake . . . I looked at it, it looked at me, flicked its tongue a couple of times and I watched it go about its business.

How do I know it was eight feet? It was longer than a railroad tie.

--FreeFlier

Damn... That's crazy.

My sister-in-law's late grandmother, who owned the house we keep going to up on the mountain, had a bear that kept lounging on her porch every day. She'd open the window and talk to him. Bear didn't seem to mind the conversation much, either.

Another time, a raccoon had gotten into the house, and was sleeping in a corner of her living room... About three feet from the chair at her computer desk. She heard a noise, and looked over to see him looking up at her, so she started talking to him... And this crazy critter put his forearm on the box in front of him, and kept looking up at her, as if he was listening to her.

Her last name didn't happen to be Doolittle by any chance?

Couple years ago a guy in a London suburb woke up and found a fox taking a nap next to him on the bed.

I've gone to bed with what I thought was a fox on occasion... and woke up with something less attractive...but then I quit drinking

GlytchMeister wrote:Her last name didn't happen to be Doolittle by any chance?

Eliza was one of those Doolittles?

Huh. So that's how she could understand Shaw!

FreeFlier wrote:I did that with an eight-foot rattlesnake . . . I looked at it, it looked at me, flicked its tongue a couple of times and I watched it go about its business.

How do I know it was eight feet? It was longer than a railroad tie.

--FreeFlier

My grandfather once told me a story from his youth, when people first got access to cars that could make it up the Alleghenies. He was with somebody in one of those spoke-wheeled cars with narrow tires, like on a Model T, way up some mountain road that might never have seen car traffic before.

They came around a sharp bend on the road, and surprised a big rattlesnake. They stopped just in time to miss it.

It was a hot summer day, the kind when snakes get ornery, and the snake had never seen a car before. It struck at the car, and bit the tire.

And exploded. Hollow fangs, y'know.

I admired my grandfather, but my grandmother had a hard life.

Type miner, you're lucky I wasn't eating or drinking at the time, because that rattlesnake balloon story would have made it go all over my iPad

"...it was the brief look of surprise that got me."

FreeFlier wrote:I did that with an eight-foot rattlesnake . . . I looked at it, it looked at me, flicked its tongue a couple of times and I watched it go about its business.

I couldn't even begin to guess the number of times I've woken up to find a rattlesnake or a cobra or some other exciting reptilian friend being all cuddly with me. Or discovered an arachnid buddy, for that matter. Or hedgehogs, or squirrels, and once a badger. I've found the best course is to just go back to sleep: if hasn't decided to bite you yet, then it's not going to suddenly decide to just for the fun of it.

AnotherFairportfan wrote:Couple years ago a guy in a London suburb woke up and found a fox taking a nap next to him on the bed.

Dude.

A few years ago I was sleeping towards the back end of the house, itself on a property that was a combination of 'used to be farmland but was subdivided around WWII...' & 'I always have a truck garden in the backyard' land-owner.

The cats in residence kept the mice away and all was good until one of them seem to take up a position right behind the computer chair I was sitting in.

It was dark and I couldn't be bothered to dig him out of the dirty clothes hamper (why bother? he's fine...) only to pick up said basket the following morning and find a baby possum face peering back at me from a foot away.

( I hate the damn things; they're creepy...)

Over the back fence he was deposited, gently, mostly, and fairthewell- but for hours and hours the 'ting was three feet away from my neck veins... < shudder >