Hey Lola, I dont mind sharing the story.....lol.....
I was an animal trainer/handler (wrangler) in film and tv for 18 straight years over here in younger days...lol...One advert was when BT were selling shares and they wanted everyone to get a fair chance to buy shares, so they invented the advert with animals going into the ark 2 by 2 and for them to not be late in getting the shares.....we did pygmy hippo's without a problem, we did box turtles without a problem, we did all manner of creepy crawly things without a problem, another animals agency did all the fluffy types.....Then there was the crocs...lol...
If you know crocs and how they work you will know that you cant get 2 of them to walk side by side at same speed...we had 3 trainers and 2 handlers booked to be on this shoot.....only I turned up ..... This meant that I had to recruit 2 of the stage hands to act as broom men (I told them that if it flicks round stick a broom in its face so it can bite that instead of me...lol...), always the best way to do it, so as there was just me I lined up the 2 crocs, one 6' the other 7' long Black Caimans, I lifted the back legs and tail off the floor with both of them, one under each arm with me sort of crouching to push them forward, so all that would be seen by the camera was the front ends moving in sync together, this worked really well...Only problem was...as soon as they said "Cut" I put the tail ends down-someone shouted me and as I looked up instead of concentrating on what I was doing the bigger decided to lash out with the tail, as it lashed it took my legs from under me and as the tail swung back it cracked me right across the face on up to the side of my head...even though knocked silly and couldn't see, apparently, I sprung up backwards like a cat and flew backwards until I hit the wall and collapsed...then with red stuff pouring out of my face I caught up the bigger and stuck it back in its transport crate, same with the other and left them to be returned to the owner by the film crew, I took myself with the set nurse off to hospital to get stitched...one zig zag cut on my right cheek (looks like an "M"took 38 cosmetic stitches to close it up, other much smaller cuts right up to the top side of my head didn't really need stitching but they insisted and had 3 or 4 standard stitches in each......
Always remember, crocs dont need to bite to hurt....that tail has hard bony scutes all down it and when they hit they force-rip you open, very jagged rips occur and take some real careful stitching...lol...I was swollen on the whole side of my head for WEEKS!!!!!
It was only the fact that I took ALL the money for the job myself that made the job worthwhile...lol...3 mans wages for 2 hours work...oh yes, that worked as a soother!!!
There was only 2 animals I would always refuse to work with as I regarded them as dangerous.....
1st was the Tiger, in fact, any of the 3 types of Tiger...the body language is totally different from Mountain Lion, African Lion, Leopard and Cheetah, I was able to work with those but a Tiger uses different signals...so I regarded them as being extremely dangerous ...
2nd is the Hamster.....lol...yeah, you heard me right...lol...those little f*****s are the only animals that deliberately wanted to attack me for no reason...so I always refused to work with them....just dont like them!!! (and I guess they know it!!!)
I used to do all the video nasties, spiders scorpions snakes bats rats... hey...just about everything that is classed as nasty or creepy...but they were the fun to use in films...