For me, it was sort of a long process...I'd always known I was supposed to be attracted to human females, but growing up, I always felt like I was just playing a role. Dogs were a different story...

My earliest exposure to the idea of zoophilia was when I was "younger", and I overheard my stepdad telling my mother about a guy he'd heard about on some radio show who had married his horse. It later struck me how nonjudgmental he'd been about the whole idea, with him mostly wondering how he'd be able to pleasure his equine mate.

We owned a pair of huskies for a brief time, and they ended up mating at one point, which my parents caught on home video. I was too young to understand what was going on at the time, but when I was older, I would ahem watch that tape several times surreptitiously. I would sometimes go about pretending/wishing I could be a dog, and once I knew what sex was, remembered wishing I was a dog so I could have sex with one. At one point, I dry-humped an older male dog we were dog-sitting "just to see what it would be like".

When I discovered the internet, I was pretty interested in and turned on by animal mating pictures for a while, mainly dogs. One mating site was run by a furry who'd posted some of his artwork, and that's how I slowly discovered the furry fandom, though I never became deeply involved, and still am not to this day. When it comes to the fandom, I will freely admit about 90% of my interest is toward furry porn, the best of which can fulfill many a zoo's fantasies to some extent.

Somewhere along the line, I also discovered bestiality pictures, and while I didn't usually get off to them (humans were and are generally a turn-off for me sexually), it did spark the idea in my mind. I found myself having sexual thoughts about female dogs, and at the time thinking "please God, not this...", but it wasn't hugely disruptive to my life. I did come to terms with my attraction, but I honestly don't remember the specifics--much of my last year or so of high school was taken up with classes, extracurriculars, and college admissions, so I didn't have much time to dwell on it.

At some point a year or so into college, I realized and fully accepted that I was a zoophile, and became more involved with the zoo community. Joined BeastForum (though I later left after I discovered the site's many shortcomings), joined other zoo forums, and opened up an account on LiveJournal where I met other like-minded zoos, many of whom are still friends today. I discovered reddit near the end of college, made this account, and did a few AMAs. I've since had the opportunity to meet several zoos in real life (almost all very positive experiences!) and start graduate school, and that pretty much brings me to today.

I have always liked animals and would prefer to spend time with them, but fairly recently I realized "hey wait a second, I would rather lose my virginity to a dog than to a human" then decided to look around on the internet to see if I was a freak.