I actually saw this exact thing happen a while ago. My school has a mascot named “Wolfie” (my classmates just say “furry” when they see it), and during a pep rally, “Wolfie” was trying to get us excited or something. There was 5-8 feet of empty space between 7th graders and 8th graders and “Wolfie”. To quote a friend “we avoided the furry like the damned plague!”