My ABF (in a roundabout way), when he was on one of his binges, threatened me and my dog, saying "what would be the one thing in the world that would hurt you most if it was no longer here?" While saying this, he looked right at the dog. The next day, I didn't go into work because I was terified of what would happen. That afternoon, I asked him to leave. That night, he refused to leave, and while there was no physical violence, the possibility existed. I called the police not once, but twice.
He never came back to that apartment-I moved, he moved and each time this incident was mentioned, he always tried to refer to it as a joke. It wasn't to me and when I felt threatened, I called the police. Even though we have moved to our own places and have reconciled, I told him that things like that are not jokes, it wasn't trivial to me and if I ever feel threatened like that again, I will did what I did before.