Furry before Furry

[Nagi]

Just something that Poped into my head a couple days, but couldn't put it sown because IV been busy.
Anyway for those who don't get it, it basically mean being furry before you even know what a furry was(or people who were born furry).

I consider myself as being born furry. Since I could remember I loved animals especially anthros, but I alwaysed drew quads(mainly wolves) since I could hold a pencil. I alwaysed loved animal holloween costumes and allwaysed went as some sort of animal. When ever I played dress up I try to find anything that resembles an animal. I wanted an animal costume so bad when I was younger that I actually made paper partial suits, head, hand paws, and tails, for like 3 yrs they were fun to make and wear although( being paper) didn't last more than 3 days of contineus wear. After thinking about it making those paper heads actually helped me in the long run for building my first fursuit head( still not done)

Iv shared my furry before furry story, I'd love to here yours!

[Loc]

I don't think I was born a furry, but I certainly always loved animals and was the odd kid pretending to be a dinosaur or a lion in the school playground (my imaginary friend was a small dinosaur as well, no wonder I went into palaeontology). My parents encouraged me with nature documentaries and dinosaur toys and the Redwall books.

I joined a website when I was 11 or 12, maybe a bit younger, and the character that I used to represent myself was a black and blue dragon with a robotic arm. Looking back on it, that was my first fursona. A year or two later, I found references to the fandom and decided I didn't like it for various reasons that made sense to me at the time, but continued to use my dragon character and be interested in anthro art.

I didn't really accept the fandom until I came to uni four years ago, but I was a furry before then, even though I didn't know, and later didn't like, the term.

[Charrus]

Oooh yes I consider myself the same way. I have always loved animals since I was a young kid, cats and dogs particularly. I had a set of cat-shaped erasers that me and my little brother played with like crazy (until they wore out, haha). Then we upgraded to the more durable "puppy/kitty in my pocket" toys, and pretty much played with those up until I was a young teen. I still have them too <3. I plan on passing them on to my daughter when she gets a bit older. Oh, and I also had a collection of pound puppies and other random cat/dog beanie babies. Still have those too actually.

Growing up, any show or movie that featured talking cats or dogs was an instant favorite. I had an obsession with 101 Dalmatians for a looong time. I still have my Lucky plush after all these years. Then I moved on to Garfield...I had Garfield -everything-. Around age 10 I got into drawing more, and thats when I first became interested in wolves. Any thing that had wolves on it, I either bought, wore, drew, read about, or collected. I also joined an avatar chatting site that features wolves/werewolves/wild canines and that is where I began to create my first fursonas. I learned about "furries" when I was around...16 or so? But my first exposure was an accidental discovery of lots of adult art, which scared me off for quite a while. It wasn't until recently that I learned there is more to the fandom than what I initially thought. And that leads me to now.

Not much has changed although I have become more selective about what I collect. I am getting more involved with the fandom as a whole, I have my fursuit partial and plans to go to some conventions. But yeah, I've been a furry all my life, just never got involved with the fandom until several months ago .

[Baylyn]

I was born a furry. Ive always liked to dress as a wolf act as one and stuff since i was abtoddler. I am native american and our cheif said wolf was my spirit animal the day i was born called me a cub and ive been that way since. Never considered myself a human etc..

[Korin S.]

I'm quite interested in these occurrences myself. I too call myself born furry, and I remember reading all of these kinds of stories from furries like that, even as I was going through the same experiences. Was anyone else here surprised when they discovered furries actually existed? I sure was.

I didn't have much exposure to many forms of media as a child, let alone stuff with animals in it. Most of it was from books, and the odd Disney cartoon. I lost myself in those books. I remember thinking after finishing a second hard-sought series, 'Gee these books about animals are great. It's just too bad only one or two other people in the world actually like this sort of thing.' Ah, how wrong I was.

My earliest book I got attached to like that was this 365-short-stories book for children, back in preschool days. And just one story of them all had me reading it over and over for weeks. I don't know why I loved it so much. But I still have that book to this day, and I've just noticed that illustrating that story are these two beautifully, painstakingly hand-drawn anthro foxes.

Looking back, I guess I've been doing subtly furry things ever since. Needless to say, I was proudly calling myself a furry soon after I discovered what they were.

[Drake Fireborne]

Well, I always enjoyed furry things as a child, redwall books, animals in movies, what have you. Not really any more then I enjoyed anything else though. Then I had some bad dealings with the fandom (My own fault) and thought that it was a bunch of really disgusting people. Of course, when I realized I was wrong and stupid, I joined
You could say I was born furry, but I dunno. I enjoyed furry things as a child, but I never imagined being an animal, at least, no more then I imagined being a dwarf X3
Was always a geek, and perhaps always a furry, but I never took a big interest in many aspects of the fandom until more recently

[Natura Wolf]

A part of me has been a furry for some time.  Though I couldn't ever pin point it.  I was born around dogs, cats, ponies and horses and always loved them dearly.

I represented myself in Chatrooms as a White Arctic Wolf which I believe represents my fursona.
Though a friend of mine did call me a sparrow based on how/who i am ^^

[Ziel]

I've just always been drawn to animals/cute things. Back when I was little, and shortly after I first played any Mario games, there were a couple kids in a house near ours that we would always hang out with. We played a lot of 'Mario' outside. You know, just running around pretending to be characters and generally looking like idiots but not caring since we were too young to know better .  Anyhow, I'd always be Yoshi. And I've always loved Yoshi since.

So yeah, I think there were a lot of pieces when I was younger that come together to make the fandom a good fit for me.

[Jacoby Quinn]

when i was four i read animorphs all the time and would pretend to turn into animals, normal-ish....but i never stopped pretending that

[charcoal]

i watched  alot of loony tunes growing up.  i liked so much i drew my own charicter its been years since the last time drew something furry. and  when turned 13  when i first heard about the fandom i was vary excited.

[AikaCoonCat]

I always wanted a tail even when I was a kid I always wished for a tail. I loved animals and watched only shows about animals. I drew my own characters and I didnt find out about the fandom till I was 14. I fell in love with it and here I am today, with my very own tail. living the dream. (see siggy for tail pic, the brown/black striped is mine)

[Wolf Kid]

I have always been a furry. I just didn't realize it before recently. I was a Pokefur before I learned about furries. I was a Houndoom Pokefur (I believe its called Giginga or something)

[Aloneness]

I've been a 'furry' since before I even know of the fandom, heck before we even had internet, I was obsessed with animals wolves especially.

[bkatt500]

You could call me furry long before I knew about it.  I mostly used animal characters in my stories and mostly read about animal characters shifting to anthros/furries as I got older.  I spent a lot of time playing with my plushies and doing animal based role-playing type games with friends growing up.  I even has a 'fursuit', a Marie costume from the Aristocats that I wore constantly.    Once I learned about it, I did resist the label for a couple years since I misunderstood it as being a sexual fetishy thing.

[Madam Glitch]

I too have been a Furry before I knew what a Furry was. I always loved animals, werewolves, and stuff like that. But I must admit, when I did find out what a Furry was, I kind of shied away from them because I believed that they were strange. I can't remember if I believed the rumors that are spread about Furries (which I will not repeat), but as you can see, I no longer think Furries should be avoided.

[Firelight]

I always acted like a dog before I knew I was furry 

[Old Rabbit]

I thought about being a furry animal over 50 years ago. Just in fantasy,
but the idea was reinforced by Disney's The shaggy dog that came out back
then, and another movie about two boys that turned into bear cubs
around that time too. So it was easy for a little guy like me to imagine being
one of the animal characters in those movies back then.

I have always enjoyed animal character movies and cartoons. I preferred comic
books with animal characters over the super hero or monster types.

As I grew older, and by 1980 I was drawing anthro animal characters, and other
fantasy creatures..  When I got online in late 1996 I was pleasantly suprised to
find all kinds of animal character drawings of creatures called Furries.

So I got on a few furrytype MUCKs, posted some of my art, and finally a web page
which led me here. 

I have always liked rabbit characters, so being one seemed natural.

Old Rabbit

[Mylo]

I've enjoyed thinking of becoming animal characters for as long as I can remember, but those thoughts came once in a while.  But looking back, I don't consider that I was a furry back then because that's the only thing I would think of.  I wasn't even really fascinated with animals back then nor was I the type of person who would act like an animal (I considered it immature).  I didn't even like drawing animals or animal characters because I thought drawing humans was better.  I think furry kind of grew on me when I discovered it.  

[Wereaibo]

Ever since I can remember I wanted out of my human skin. When I looked in the mirror, the face I saw looking back just seemed wrong somehow. I loved creatures. Animals, monsters, aliens and things of that nature. I wanted nothing more than to grow up and make monsters for film and television. I would create entire worlds and populate them with various creatures. Humans weren't heavily involved in these worlds. They were bystanders, victims or villains, never heroes and certainly never main characters. Dogs often led the heroic creatures in battles for the fate of the planet. Good creatures were more beastial and inhuman, evil creatures were mostly humanoid with horns or fangs. I saved my best and most inhuman designs for hero characters. My toys were all animals, aliens or monsters. I had no use for toy humans or anything that even remotely resembled a human.
I loved werewolves. I loved tales of humans transforming into beasts and monsters. During playtime with friends this was always my power when we played pretend. I loved puppetry. I had several animal and creature puppets I enjoyed breathing life into. I'd managed to scare a few people with them. People often thought I had real wild animals. A monkey puppet almost got me kicked out of a McDonald's when I was seven. I was only interested in animal or creature puppets though. No humans.

So I've identified with non human things for my entire life. I can't remember a time when I didn't.

[Kasuni]

I would say I was born a furry. when I was younger I would draw dogs and horses. when ever my cousins and my brother played "house" I was the pet. when we played school, I was a special student who needed to take a baby animal with me to class so I could care for it. I also never liked dolls. I had (and still do) MANY stuffed animals or animal toys.

[Kasuni]

I would say I was born a furry. when I was younger I would draw dogs and horses. when ever my cousins and my brother played "house" I was the pet. when we played school, I was a special student who needed to take a baby animal with me to class so I could care for it. I also never liked dolls. I had (and still do) MANY stuffed animals or animal toys.

something happened and this posted before I was done. anyways, when I was little I would pretend to be my dogs pup. I would have to follow her and sleep next to her or bring her food. I was always drawing. I never drew anthros.(mainly cause until I learned what Furries are, I never knew what anthros were) at school, I would be a "wild horse" and my friends had to use jump ropes to catch me. I have always preferred to be with animals than people. now, don't get me wrong, I like the company of people, but friends get annoying while my dog gets cuter. when I first could build one up to now, i would build forts but call them dens. i would be a wolf living in them with my pups. i would hunt for food in the kitchen than we eat in my den. I have also preferred movies about animals than people. My favorite movie is "Spirit: Stallion Of The Cimmeron"

[Revant]

I grew up thinking about wolves, either directly or indirectly. It's been years since I haven't spent one entire day without thinking about them at least very indirectly. Werewolves were usually my main characters on internet roleplays. I never told anyone because I thought that it was weird to think so much about shapeshifting. I remember roleplaying alone, I used to pretend I was some kind of werewolf sometimes. People noticed. I think that I might have made a few people think I am one. Lol, People.

[Keo]

I've always been what's apparently known as therian (or furian), and I've always had an interest in animals, that also has also made me interested in films/comics/cartoons/stories/etc of cartoon/talking/funny animal / furry characters. Involvement in anything has been pretty distant until recently, though.

[Fledgling]

Well, I'm a therian, so I've pretty much always been animal-like. Always liked animals much more than humans, and considered myself nonhuman for most of my life. A few years ago I even threw together a wyvern  costume, which could possibly be called a fursuit.

[Rocket T. Coyote]

I watched The Bugs Bunny Show when it was on Prime Time television. Also every Hanna-Barbera cartoon series up to and including Scooby Doo. All the pre-1948 Loony Tunes were shown on local cartoon cavalcades--including the ones now banned. Even had a Bugs Bunny Halloween costume by Collegetown. Could not get enough classic cartoons. There was always a cartoon gag about a character stepping into a full body costume and becoming a different character. I thought that was a neat trick. Now I can go to a furcon and see that happen live or experience it myself.