You certainly did not disappoint in selling your argument for dogs being your favorite animal, [@Mariana Collie]. That said, thank you for providing such an in-depth and comprehensive answer to it, as the passion is evident. Thus far this thread has had a good amount of it despite its location, so kudos to you and others who have taken similar time and effort. Though on a related note to your answer, a mirror of it, my eccentric interest centers on the other side of the coin, so to speak. The one that gets me the most attention and judgment?

My feline obsession, which is made up of a lifelong pursuit and emulation. There is no moment of waking, even dreaming life, that I can draw from memory that did not include some sort of feline influence or mythology for myself, as far back as my recall extends. I admit, the love of all things cat, primarily the great cats but the lesser cats are certainly an interest of mine, is at least as old as my "first" memories. Granted there is a great amount of memory I have lost, damaged as it were, but what bits I do know range from my first "character" to roleplay was a big cat and that many formational periods of my life in youth were punctuated by them. These range from the odd, that wherever I went cats would flock to me if they were in the area, to the coincidental as with the first two reports in youth I ever wrote were randomly drawn from a hat and both were on sabertooth cats, done by two separate teachers in two separate classes, to the remarkable where I came across a sterling silver ring with a snarling sabertooth stuck in the crack of a sidewalk, to the amusing where I was "abducted" by a white and orange Bengal tiger who were at a show - not allowing me to leave despite it being closing time - to being able to attract felines to my side at a menagerie, zoo, or compound, among many others.

This eccentric quality has unusual notes, in that I can recite and recall the information on whim easier than a phone number or even my own name; I can explain to one the mechanics and forces applied by the one-hundred-twenty-eight degree gape of [i]Smilodon fatalis'[/i] jaws and that it was the leverage of the cat's neck muscles and shoulders that gave it such a deadly bite or that the only way a white tiger is produced is by having some amount of Bengal genetics introduced and that they can create other color morphs as the golden tiger or snow white tiger, but ask of me the names of any home I lived in I cannot tell you the address or the names of the people I knew there. Among a smattering of other things, few really, there is nothing else that has held my attention or interest consistently, let alone acted as a means for self improvement. The great cats have always been my source of inspiration and not just creatively either. They have been reliably the only thing there in interest even in periods of desolation.

So here I am today, surrounded by relics, fossils, furs, skulls, paintings and the like of cats, all part of an ever expanding private collection and increasingly official personal study. At this rate before my time is done I should have enough for a very modest museum. That said, I suppose it is time for the next question, isn't it?

What is your "best worst experience" as it were? What situation was terrible but brought you and or others out for the better in the end?