From PRX, this is the Malth Radio Hour. I'm your host Ray Christian. I'm a

storyte teller and frequent host for the Malth's live events in Asheville,

North Carolina, and the host of the

podcast What's Race Saying, where I explore my many lives as a former ghetto kid,

Southern Black gentleman, retired Army paratrooper, and a doctor of education connecting centuries

of black history to understand my own story. Now I've had a love of animals for as long as I can remember. In fact, it was my earliest desire as a kid in elementary school to have a zoo in the backyard. And in pursuit of that goal, I gathered up what animals I could.

Now space in my room was a factor, so I had to start small. First it was the flea circus. Can't tell you how hard they were to collect. Later, I had

sea monkeys that looked nothing like they did on the back of that comic book I ordered

them from. No smiles, leather skin or nothing. Later I moved

up to rabbits, turtles, pigeons, cats and dogs. Today I have an assortment of dogs, chickens, ducks, and goats.

And it's been my experience that it's easy to see human attributes in animal behavior

or fall into the tendency to give human motivation to their actions

and fail in your attempts to communicate. That's why it's important to think twice

before you start imitating animal sounds because you might not know what you're saying.

In this hour, stories of chance encounters, standoffs, and the unexpected bonds between humans and the animal kingdom.

Our first story comes from Georgia Huff.

She told this one at one of our open mic story slams in Houston at warehouse live where we partner with Houston Public Media. Here's

Georgia, live at the mall.

When I agreed to go hiking with my friends Matt and Kellyn at Glacier National Park, I didn't realize that the park is also known as

Grizzly Bear Country.

Now I'm terrified of grizzly bears.

And I think primarily the reason is because at a young age

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