I belong to the "I've always been one" crowd. As far back as my memory stretches - and it's considerable - I've always been obsessed with animals and anthros. Probably a mixture of cartoons, autism and being surrounded with all manners of creatures, with whom I got to spend much more time than with children around my age.
Later, people were exceedingly mean towards my autistic ass, while the animals didn't do me any harm. Well, there have been a few crazy dogs who nibbed at my ankle, and once I had to give a wide berth to a runaway horse. But that's about it, nowhere near the concentrated flak I've been getting from my so-called "peers". So I dreamed, would that there were creatures as smart as people but as friendly as animals... To this day, my furry ideas tend to be light-hearted and I avoid not only dark themes but even mirroring more serious real-world problems.
Even later, there was this random comic book, probably not even coming from the fandom, featuring a really attractive feline girl. It was like a little revelation to me: so you can have it that way too?... What followed was some attempts at more explicit drawings. Note that I had no idea about the fandom's existence back then. But what I made wouldn't be out of place in any adult furry gallery... except it was too vanilla probably.
I didn't get internet connection until I started my first job (and the broadband was the first bigger thing I bought). Somehow I didn't need much time to find out that I'm not alone with my "weird obsession". Quite a shocker actually, I was convinced it must be something rare. But here I am, and I'm not intending to go anywhere!