I don’t necessarily think that’s a bad thing. Enjoy the moment.
This is my latest animal picture, but I don’t suppose it qualifies.
Sure, it’s not a cat!
Hi everyone, the next competition thread is up. Pets are certainly allowed - in fact, @beowulff 's original pick was “pets” but they kindly allowed me to broaden it out to allow people without furry family members to have a chance as well. As always, a broad interpretation of the theme is encouraged. 
On a personal note, I’m hoping not to forget to enter my own competition this time. Excitingly, I’m off on holiday next week, so I might even come back with some purpose-taken shots. 
I have many, many pictures of animals that I painted. I mean photos of animals I painted. Photos of painted animals that I did. Pictures of paintings of animals I painted. Animals are not painted. Well, they are painted as they are paintings, but the animals in the painting are not, themselves, painted.
Doesn’t matter. I am calling them not qualified for photo competition.
Well, i don’t make the rules, but I’d love to see them.
You do not have to ask me twice!
Ooh! I wish we had a “like” button.
Its a picture. Enter it. Love to see your work.
Just in case the cats in the competition thread get peckish.
This happened to me when I was hiking with a friend through Porcupine Mountains State Park in Michigan’s U.P. We stopped by a lake for lunch and a black bear walked right up to us. We started backing up until we were almost in the lake. The bear came within 5 feet of us, then decided we weren’t that interesting and ambled away. For some reason I completely forgot I had a camera on me until he was almost gone. I finally took a shot…of a blurry dark shape among the trees 
I was driving on a backroad near work when I saw a bear crossing the road in front of me. I rolled down my window and crept forward. The bear just walked along the road as I went by. I used my phone to take a burst of pictures, most of which had my fingers over the lens. I got one good shot then he ran up the hill.
Nice. Did you have a difficult time choosing between that guy and the orangutan shot for the photo contest?
Can’t speak for @kayaker but while they’re both great shots, I think the orangutan one is a belter (as we say in my part of the world).
@Biggirl Wow, that’s awesome.
I think that I agree with you in terms of paintings not qualifying for the photography competition, but this is lovely to see and there’s no reason whatsoever not to share them in this thread.
Actually, I’d forgotten all about the bear picture until I read about you and your bear encounter.
Yeah, it’s the 3 Cs - Composition, Color, Charisma. The Orang has got it all.
A star is born!
This one was hard. So many animal photos! Pink got entered in the competition thread, and here’s a squirrel giving me the stink eye:
I’ve got plenty of pics of my two fellas who died 3 years ago, one at 22 and the other a few months later at 20. I know they were old but I still miss the little fuckers. I’ve been debating with myself over adding one but they are all pretty low quality and I’m not sure I want to inflict any one of them onto the general public.
And now I’ve typed this and I’m almost sure someone will tell me to post one. So I will, I’ll just upload one and post it.