A sh-sh-shAAAAAAAAARK!!
Yeah, it’d probably be a bad idea to have one as a pet, but I question the “dangerous” thing. I was just reading the Wiki on the cassowary, so I’m not trying to post as an expert or anything, but I note that, among all cassowary attacks, the vast majority had to do with people trying to hand-feed the cute widdle birdies, or in defense of food sources, or guarding chicks. In other words, it was the people who were doing dumb stuff.
Granted, that’s normally the case when a human gets attacked by an animal, but I question whether that in itself makes an animal “dangerous”.
Not only that, but the only recorded human death from cassowary attack was a 16-year-old kid who, along with his brother, was trying to “beat the cassowary to death with a club”. :smack: So the cassowary fought back. Dangerous animal? I dunno.
I read that as “I’ve touched a lot of exceptionally exotic herpes.” :smack:
A cat going to the vet for her yearly shot? You win 
a rabid raccoon
What about the keeper? 
The one that I was the most nervous about was a camel. It was at a zoo, and the camel was standing up against the fence… I wanted to try petting it, but was thinking “if it really doesn’t want to be touched, I’d better be ready to pull my hand back fast”. But it turned out that it liked being petted. In fact, when I came back around a bit later, the camel was standing way over on the far side of the enclosure, and it looked up, saw me, and came right over to me. Sweetie pie camel 
I’ve also come very close to a copperhead and a barracuda in the wild, but didn’t actually touch them.
Surprised I’m the first to point out:
Oo yeah Minnie Luna - you’ve just reminded me - an injured possum. I had to don a full-faced helmet and workmen’s gloves. Just to euthanase the poor thing. (I was gonna say the poor little thing, but it sure wasn’t little…)
Because they’re soft and fuzzy. Bumblebees, anyway.
I used to do that, too.
The Pig. :eek:
My Mom bought a baby pot bellied pig that was just so cute when it was wee. And then it turned into satan. This thing would attack anyone and everyone. It had razor sharp tusks and made snorts and sounds that nothing but an evil creature could make. It attacked my Mom once to the point my Step Dad had to beat it off her with a shovel. They got a rescue place to come take it once, but they brought it back the very same day. Apparently they dont rescue the devil incarnate. Eventually they got the owners of a big farm to come take him away.
I have a picture of one of my fellow tourists grabbing a komodo dragon on Komodo Island. The tour guide is in the background of the photo looking very nervous. I kept my distance.
I use a cobra snake for a necktie.
I’ve petted a young male tiger (around 400 pounds), and played with several ocelots (including one coming up behind me and giving me a big hug around the neck). Even baby ocelots, small and cute as they are, are strong and they have sharp little teeth and claws. But the hugging one was a full grown (and very sweet) female.
Crocodiles at this crazy zoo place near Cancun called Crococun. Oh, it has a website! (They claim to be in Cancun, but it’s actually in Puerto Morelos, which is where we were staying.)
They didn’t seem to take safety issues very seriously, if you’re looking to go to a zoo that lets you have very up close and personal experience with animals.
A boa constrictor, a full grown, horned bull and George W. Bush.
All this sting ray talk, I forgot that I have stepped on numerous rays in the wild (okay, some could have been flounders but it was sting ray season and they were a likely suspect and it was not an intentional touching). Then I also touched several de-stung rays at aquariums and waded in a pool of them at Discovery Cove, had them suck on my toes, weird. I’ve also touched small sharks in those aquariums.
Mosquitos, sure at lot of them have touched me, I’ve swatted a few and I think I even caught sleeping sickness from one once. But, I really only considered the animals that were touched intentionally.
This reminds me of one of the Pink Panther movies. Inspector Clouseau is checking in at a hotel and there’s a large dog laying on the ground near the desk. He asks the clerk, “Does your dog bite?”
“No.”
So Clouseau reaches down to pet the dog is promptly bitten. He recoils and snarls at the clerk, “I thought you said your dog did not bite!”
“That’s not my dog.”
The solution to that problem sounds delicious. 
An extremely ill-mannered horse, when I worked on a farm. When I would take him to his pasture, he would rear over my head waving his hooves around my ears. This happened, oh, every day. I would also have to leap back from him when I removed his halter as he would bite and strike out as soon as it was off his face. This horse was a GELDING. Imagine if he was a Stallion! shudders
Of course this 4 legged death machine was the sort whose owner had 10 color-coordinated blankets for her woogums.
Just when I had decided to refuse to ever handle him again, the owner moved him. Thank god.