If you run across an animal and it puffs its fur out, back off and give it a respectable amount of space. It’s highly unlikely that you will be making friends with that animal anyways, so it’s best if you just leave it be.
Large Animals Rearing Back
Horses and cows both share a defense mechanism called rearing. Goats, sheep, and other long-legged quadrupeds do a similar practice that is generally intended to just scare away predators, but if a predator comes too close to the animal, it will come down and crush them.
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