One Big Happy Family: Heartwarming Stories of Animals Caring for One Another
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One Big Happy Family: Heartwarming Stories of Animals Caring for One Another
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Overview
Inspiring, True Tales of Interspecies Adoption
One Big Happy Family tells the heartwarming stories of a different kind of animal rescue: amazing animals who have reached out to save the lives of newborns from other species and raise them as their own. Each story features wonderful photos of these cute animals, whether it's of the border collie and his piglets, the cat and her ducklings, the orangutan and his lion cubs, or even the Labrador and her baby pygmy hippo, these are poignant, charming true stories of unlikely animal friends -- including a surprising range of dog breeds -- who have felt the parental instinct and cared for animal babies of every stripe.
Lisa Rogak's One Big Happy Family celebrates the intimacy and emotional connections of parenthood and the miracle of interspecies animal adoption. Filled with adorable animal photos featuring these newborns and their foster moms and dads, this uplifting collection of true tales of animal behavior and cute animal pictures will astonish readers everywhere and is perfect for the animal lover on your list.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781250035394 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | St. Martin's Publishing Group |
| Publication date: | 10/01/2013 |
| Sold by: | Macmillan |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 160 |
| File size: | 11 MB |
| Note: | This product may take a few minutes to download. |
About the Author
Lisa Rogak is the author of The Dogs of War: The Courage, Love, and Loyalty of Military Working Dogs and Dogs of Courage: The Heroism and Heart of Working Dogs Around the World, and editor of the New York Times bestselling Barack Obama in His Own Words, among many other books.
LISA ROGAK is the author of numerous books, including And Nothing But the Truthiness: The Rise (and Further Rise) of Stephen Colbert. She is the editor of the New York Times bestseller Barack Obama in His Own Words and author of the New York Times bestseller Angry Optimist: The Life and Times of Jon Stewart. Rogak lives in New Hampshire. Learn more on her website.
Read an Excerpt
One Big Happy Family
Heartwarming Stories of Animals Caring for One Another
By Lisa Rogak
St. Martin's Press
Copyright © 2013 Lisa RogakAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-250-03540-0
CHAPTER 1
The Greyhound and Her Fawn, Her Fox Kits, Her Bunnies, and ...
For some animals, their maternal — and paternal — instincts don't just stop at helping to raise one critter of another species. Some enjoy it so much — and indeed are so well-suited to the task — that they do so many times over.
In 2003, local police had found a young greyhound locked in a garden shed. It was clear she had been there for more than a few days because she was in pretty rough shape: She showed signs of having been abused before she was abandoned, and she was malnourished and covered with dirt. The police contacted Geoff Grewcock, who had founded the Nuneaton & Warwickshire Wildlife Sanctuary in Great Britain two years earlier, and he took her in to live among other abandoned and abused animals.
Originally, his goal was to bring the dog (christened Jasmine by the sanctuary) back to health, help her renew her trust of humans, and then find a new home for her, but then something unusual and heartwarming happened. As soon as Jasmine started to regain her health, she would accompany Grewcock around the grounds of the sanctuary, and took a great interest whenever a new animal arrived at the sanctuary, especially the very youngest ones. In essence, caring for these babies became Jasmine's job, and over the years, she served as surrogate mother to a variety of fox and badger cubs, chicks, guinea pigs, and rabbits.
The story of a young fawn's arrival at the sanctuary was typical of Jasmine's nurturing instincts. A neighbor found the fawn roaming in a field not far from the sanctuary's grounds. She was acting disoriented, and most likely her mother had been killed, so she was brought to the sanctuary. Grewcock named the fawn Bramble, and soon after her arrival, Jasmine greeted the scared fawn and promptly assumed responsibility for her care.
"They are inseparable," said Grewcock. "Bramble walks between her legs as they walk together round the sanctuary, and they keep kissing each other. It's absolutely marvelous. It's a real treat to see them."
He added that Jasmine treated every baby animal in the same way regardless of the species or breed: with lots of love and affection. Grewcock said he particularly marveled at how Jasmine interacted with the bunnies that came into the sanctuary, since greyhounds were bred to chase them. She even calmly sat while birds perched on her nose. "It is quite amazing, particularly as she is a greyhound breed and they are usually quite aggressive, which is why they're used for racing," he said. "She simply dotes on the animals as if they were her own, it's incredible to see."
It's clear that Jasmine helped the new young arrivals in a number of ways: She made them feel more comfortable and eased the tension they felt in the wake of their abuse and/or abandonment, as well as helped them grow accustomed to their new home at the sanctuary. It didn't take long for the animals in her charge to feel close to her and cuddle and trust in her, and by extension to Grewcock and the other humans at the sanctuary.
Sadly, Jasmine passed away in 2011, but the inspiring story of her mothering instincts will live on.
The Hen and Her Ducklings
We all get confused from time to time. For example, when we fully intend to order a Diet Coke, we somehow end up with a chocolate milkshake. Occasionally, animals also get their wires crossed, with wonderfully charming results.
Take the case of Hilda the hen, who lived on a farm near Poole in Dorset, Great Britain. When she started sitting on a nest of five eggs in the spring of 2012, her owner, Philip Palmer, fully expected to be greeted with a clutch of fluffy yellow chicks about one month after Hilda settled in. Palmer eagerly anticipated the moment the chicks would begin to hatch, as they'd be a welcome attraction at the children's activity farm he ran named — appropriately enough — Farmer Palmer's. He knew that there was nothing that children like more than watching a flock of baby chicks running around cheeping.
But when the eggs finally hatched, both farmer and hen got a big surprise.
They turned out to be Indian Runner ducklings, not chicks. Chickens and ducks congregate together at the farm and live in the same coops, so it seemed that Hilda had simply picked the wrong nest to sit on. Though Palmer had regularly checked the nest after he first saw the eggs, Hilda rarely left her perch, and so he had no idea they were duck eggs, which are significantly larger than chicken eggs.
As it turned out, it didn't much matter to the mother of her accidentally adopted children. Once the ducklings opened their eyes, they saw Hilda, and thanks to avian imprinting, they automatically regarded her to be their true mother, and the hen treated them as her own.
"Hilda doesn't seem bothered at all," said Palmer. "The ducklings follow her around just as chicks would. It was so surprising but lovely and she has proved to be very capable at raising them. The ducklings aren't aware that their mother is a hen, and Hilda is totally unaware that she's actually got a bunch of ducks waddling behind her."
Within a short time, five ducklings scurrying closely behind a hen became a regular sight at Farmer Palmer's. "The ducklings don't leave her side and if they get scared they run for cover under their 'mum,'" Palmer added.
The Cat and Her Squirrel
The day started out like any other. Rebecca Hill was walking her three children to school in West Sussex in the United Kingdom, when they came across a squirrel, which was not unusual in their neck of the woods.
What was unusual, however, was the fact that the squirrel looked to be only a few days old, and that it had clearly not eaten in awhile. In other words, the baby squirrel looked in danger of perishing right then and there.
Hill and her family were avid animal lovers who already had laid claim to two cats named Sugar and Spice, and so after dropping her children at school, Rebecca scooped up the squirrel and took him home, where she tried to feed it from a baby bottle. Unfortunately, the critter wanted nothing to do with it.
That's when Rebecca's husband, Martin, came up with an idea: Sugar and Spice had each given birth to a litter of five kittens — for a total of ten — a couple of weeks earlier, so maybe they could slip the squirrel in between the kittens and the nursing moms wouldn't notice. After all, the two cats were already sharing nursing duties with kittens roaming from one mama cat to the other, so what was one more mouth to feed, even if it belonged to a different species?
They decided to give it a chance. To facilitate the process, Martin came up with a novel solution: He decided to sprinkle some of Rebecca's perfume on the baby — specifically Chanel No. 5 — so that the cat wouldn't automatically view the squirrel as a threat to her and her babies, but rather a familiar part of the household. He figured that after a certain point, the cats' maternal instincts would kick in and both mothers would view the squirrel as just another one of the kittens.
It was worth a try, especially as the condition of the squirrel — now christened Chestnut by the children — was deteriorating further. Martin checked with the family's veterinarian, who said it couldn't hurt. "It was a bit of a gamble, but I sprayed him with perfume to disguise his smell," said Martin. "Chanel No. 5 is my wife's favorite and the cats seem to like it too."
After dousing the squirrel with perfume, they set Chestnut in among the kittens and watched and waited. "I was worried they might turn against him, but I watched them for a couple of hours and Chestnut was happily suckling," Martin reported. Within a few days, both Sugar and Spice were feeding and grooming Chestnut as if he was one of the litter.
The family began to add some fruit, nuts, and popcorn to the squirrel's diet as well, and Chestnut continued to thrive. "I'm sure Chestnut thinks he is a cat and the cats think so too," Martin added. "He plays rough and tumble with the other kittens and only leaves the basket to forage for other food. He still has that instinct. I found both cats after they'd been dumped in a plastic bag, so perhaps they look after Chestnut because they know what it's like to be abandoned."
The Boxer and His Kid
Elizabeth Tozer of the Pennywell Farm wildlife center at Buckfastleigh, in Devon, in the United Kingdom, was concerned in February 2008 when she checked in on the goat pen and saw that one of her female goats had just given birth to three kids. Goats have their hooves full dealing with two, and so in order to ensure that the two healthiest babies survive, the mothers will typically ignore the runt, which in most cases is left to die.
Tozer immediately got busy cleaning and bottle-feeding the baby kid. She was prepared to take over the role of mother herself, but then her male boxer dog named Billy surprised her by assuming parenting duties for the orphaned goat — who Tozer would christen Lilly — when she was just a few hours old. In fact, Tozer says that Billy's paternal instinct kicked in the instant he spotted Lilly. Right then he nosed Tozer away from Lilly and insisted on helping to clean and groom her. After he was done that first time, he never let the kid out of his sight, and vice versa.
"Lilly follows Billy around, which is really quite amusing to watch, and Billy sleeps with the goat and cleans her mouth after she feeds," said Tozer, adding that the unique relationship helped to attract a large number of curious visitors to the sanctuary.
The Springer Spaniel and Her Lambs
On a sprawling sheep farm, dogs have an important role to play. They can help out by herding other animals, they can scare away predators, and they serve as loyal companions who help out at the end of a hard day by just lying alongside their humans, and occasionally other critters, the satisfaction of a hard day's work behind them.
Few farmers would expect any canine to help out with feeding other animals on the farm, but that's exactly what a springer spaniel named Jess does on a 180-acre farm in Devon, Great Britain.
Jess feeds orphaned lambs on the farm by holding a bottle of milk in her mouth and letting the little ones go at it. Her owner, Louise Moorhouse, who keeps around 270 rare-breed sheep on the farm, including the Dorset Horn, said she doesn't know what she would do without the ten-year-old dog. "It's like having an extra pair of hands," she said.
At any one time, Jess serves as surrogate mother to several orphaned or abandoned lambs. "She's been doing it ever since she was a puppy," said Moorhouse, who admits she still laughs at the sight of Jess galloping across the field, milk bottle in mouth, in pursuit of a hungry lamb. "I taught her to hold the milk bottle in her mouth and she did the rest."
Jess also makes herself useful with other skills, including toting buckets of water or grain, and even bringing tools to wherever Moorhouse sends her on the farm. In fact, Jess has become such a valuable — and beloved — dog to both humans and lambs that she is already helping to train a new recruit — a cocker spaniel named Lily — to ramble across the pastures and help to feed even more orphans and abandoned lambs who need her.
The Kelpie and His Baby Chicks
When Maree Lousick's seven-year-old purebred kelpie named Murray went missing for hours each day from the home they shared in Darwin, Australia, she never grew worried. He always came back by the end of the day.
But one day, Murray didn't come home, and Maree went looking for him, driving all over the neighborhood. Her imagination ran wild, but she refused to give up. After spending hours calling his name, she headed home, hoping he had returned. Less than a mile from home, she finally spotted her dog, and just what he was doing would have never entered her mind in a million years.
Her beloved dog was sitting in a neighbor's yard playing with a flock of baby chicks.
Was that all? She called him into the car, and after a bit of coaxing, he climbed into the front seat and headed home with her. The next day, when he wandered off again, this time she knew where to look first. "When it happened again the next day, and the day after, it actually got a bit embarrassing," she admitted. "That's when I knew there was only one way to keep him at home: I had to buy him his own little chicks."
The next day, Lousick bought two little black chicks for her dog because they just happened to match his fur. And just like that, Murray's wandering days were over.
In fact, the dog became so attached to the chicks that he only left their side to go outside to relieve himself. Now, Lousick never wonders where her dog is as long as there are at least a couple of chicks in her home.
"While I'm at work, I keep the chicks in a little box in the house, and Murray sits next to the box all day and stares at it," she said. "When I come home we let them out and he plays with them on the lawn. They crawl all over him, slide off his head, he carries them around in his mouth and they never get out of his sight. He's a great dad to his chickens, he sleeps next to them, and at the slightest noise he's up to check up on them. He's even given up all his dog habits, like fetching things and playing with the ball, just to sit next to them.
"Murray is in love with his baby chickens."
The Golden Retriever and Her Bunnies
One day in the spring of 2011, San Francisco resident Tina Case finally agreed to allow her daughters Danielle, Sami, and Alli to acquire a dog of their own if they a) promised to take care of it, and b) saved up the money necessary in order to bring one home. After receiving her permission, all three girls got busy, knocking on neighbors' doors to offer their pet- and babysitting services. Once they had saved up enough money, off they went to pick out a suitable canine.
They found Koa, a golden retriever who quickly settled into her new home. She set her mind to becoming an integral part of the family, offering companionship to the Cases who in turn provided her with plenty of opportunity to pursue more doggy pursuits. Soon Koa's favorite activity became chasing lizards in the backyard, and to the little girls' relief, the dog always let the reptiles go after providing them with a little bit of exercise.
One day, Koa was on her usual lizard hunt when she became obsessed with exploring a raised spot of dirt alongside the house. Danielle and Sami came to investigate what their beloved dog was so intent on investigating, and to their great surprise, they found a nest full of wild baby rabbits. The girls rushed the bunnies to a neighbor who was also a vet, who diligently checked them over. After a thorough examination and clean bill of health, the bunnies were returned to the Case family along with instructions on how to care for them.
The girls and their mom were prepared to take care of the bunnies themselves, but then Koa stepped in to help care and nurture her discoveries. It was an unusual situation, because many breeds of dogs would rather chase rabbits than nuzzle them, but she was determined to protect them.
After some initial hesitation, Tina Case decided to allow the dog to exercise her maternal instincts. "Koa has never been a mother, so she thinks these are her little puppies," she said. "They hop all over her and always find their way to the crook of her leg and find warmth and shelter."
The Cat and Her Ducklings
In 2007, a three-year-old Japanese cat named Hiroko gave birth to three kittens, but within a few days all three unfortunately died. Her owners, farmers Norio and Yoshiko Endo of Saitama Prefecture, took note but they had a busy farm to run and thought there was nothing they could do. By chance, they had recently purchased a pair of spot-billed duck eggs from another farmer, and when the ducklings hatched, they placed the birds in a separate room on the farm. The Endos were experienced farmers, and knew not to keep cats and ducks in the same vicinity, especially not in the same enclosure. But in the hectic daily life of running a farm, one day they accidentally shut the cat in the same room with the ducklings. When they went to check on the ducklings and saw the cat in the room, they immediately panicked.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from One Big Happy Family by Lisa Rogak. Copyright © 2013 Lisa Rogak. Excerpted by permission of St. Martin's Press.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Table of Contents
Contents
Title Page,Copyright Notice,
Dedication,
Introduction,
The Greyhound and Her Fawn, Her Fox Kits, Her Bunnies, and ...,
The Hen and Her Ducklings,
The Cat and Her Squirrel,
The Boxer and His Kid,
The Springer Spaniel and Her Lambs,
The Kelpie and His Baby Chicks,
The Golden Retriever and Her Bunnies,
The Cat and Her Ducklings,
The Hen and Her Falcon Chick,
The Border Collie and His Vietnamese Pot-Bellied Piglets,
The Reed Warbler and Her Cuckoo Chick,
The German Shepherd and Her Kittens,
The Owl and Her Gosling,
The Goat and Her Wolf Pup,
The Chicken, the Goose, and Their Three Ducklings,
The German Shorthaired Pointer and Her Owlet,
The Tamarin Monkey and His Twin Baby Marmosets,
The Pointer Mix and His Joey,
The Great Dane and His Fawn,
The German Shepherd Doberman Mix and His Baby Badger,
The Border Collie and His Hyena and Tiger Cubs,
The Lioness and the Antelope Calf,
The Foxhound and Her Fox Kits,
The Cow and Her Lambs,
The Dog and His Baby Monkey,
The Dalmatian and Her Lamb,
The Cat and Her Baby Chicks,
The Mutt and Her Bush Baby,
The Airedale Terrier and Her Guinea Pigs,
The Sow and Her Kitten,
The Pointer Rhodesian Ridgeback Mix and Her Baby Llama,
The Boxer and Her Piglet,
The Chimpanzee and Her Puppies,
The Fox and Her Kittens,
The German Shepherd and Her Bengal Tiger Cubs,
The Bulldog and Her Baby Squirrels,
The Orangutan and His Lion Cubs,
The Baboon and Her Bush Baby,
The Yellow Lab and His Duckling,
The Chicken and Her Rottweiler Puppies,
The Chihuahua and His Baby Marmoset,
The Peacock and Her Gosling,
The Labrador and Her Baby Pygmy Hippo, Her Tiger Cubs, Her Porcupine, and ...,
The Ginger Tomcat and His Lion Cub,
The Akita and Her Lion Cub,
The Rabbit and Her Kittens,
The Pointer and Her Puma Cub,
The Pig and His Lamb,
The Great Dane and His Baby Chimp,
The Tortoiseshell Cat and Her Rottweiler Puppies,
Notes,
Photo Credits,
Acknowledgments,
Also by Lisa Rogak,
Copyright,