First of all, congratulations to the three winners!
My number one choice was Velvet Danger. I liked the word choices, imagery, descriptions and the build-up of tension as the narrator advanced through the woods. The author made me feel as if I were there and that is great. The story had both a feel for nature (the nature theme) AND animals. Also, when writers have to work within a certain word count, it's hard to write a piece that can tell the story and resolve it successfully without going over the limit. This one did. Well done.
When I considered entering this contest, I wondered how to approach it since I am not a pet owner. So I decided that since nature was included as a theme/subject, I'd enter my "moon" rhyming children's story. I actually wrote it years ago when my children were little but was never able to get it published. I did some tweaking for the contest. And now, thanks to coming in tied for fourth, I'm considering sending it out again.
And originally for this contest, I wrote a funny animal story called "They Made A Flying Monkey Out of Me", told by one of The Wizard of Oz's flying monkeys. But humor is tough to write, and after I finished the story and re-read it, I wasn't sure if it was all that funny so I scrapped it. Instead I submitted my re-telling of The Little Red Hen.