Unlikely Friendships Read online

  PHYLUM: Chordata

  CLASS: Mammalia

  ORDER: Carnivora

  FAMILY: Felidae

  GENUS: Lynx

  SPECIES: Lynxrufus

  Fire no friend to wildlife. In any given year in California alone, there may be fifty or more big blazes a month that destroy hundreds of acres of habitat, displacing animals by the thousands. Many perish in the flames or after, from stress or dehydration.

  But some lucky ones are rescued.

  That’s what happened to a tiny fawn and a young bobcat during a major fire near Santa Barbara in 2009. It was May, when many animals give birth, so the California forests were filled with wobbly-legged newborns. Other fires had already destroyed vast tracts of wildland that year, so surviving animals were extra vulnerable. The May fire was devastating. When rehabilitators from the Santa Barbara Animal Rescue team picked up a particular young deer, it was weak and wandering in the area where the fire had started, crying and alone.

  Because of the number of orphans being rescued, space at wildlife centers was scarce, so the sheriff’s department offered its facility as temporary housing.

  “We had a tiny kitten, a bobcat, already in a crate there,” says Julia Di Sieno, director of the team. “We had rescued him on the governor’s property, and the animal needed round-the-clock care. We weren’t sure he’d survive.” When she brought in the fawn, she found that crates, like rehab space, were in short supply. There was no choice but to put the two young animals together. And that turned out to be just what they needed.

  “As soon as we let the fawn in, the bobcat went right over to her, curled up, and went to sleep. They were both so exhausted and weak. They cuddled right up as one.” The animals were only together for a couple of hours while rescuers found room for the fawn a few hours away, “but it was such an important time,” she says. “It offered them both warmth and comfort, and maybe alleviated their fear and loneliness. It was such a lovely bond.”

  The rescue group, which on this occasion saved wildlife and domestic animals of all sorts, rehabilitates everything from ducks to foxes and, eventually, releases them into areas where habitat remains intact. After its much-needed rest with its bobcat friend, the fawn was relocated and placed with other fawns so it would grow up with its own kind. Months later, when the fawn was a year old, the deer herd was set free.

  “It’s funny because a fawn would normally be a nice little morsel of food for a bobcat—an adult bobcat, that is,” says Di Sieno. Indeed, the cat, still in captivity for the time being, has since become a stealthy and successful hunter. But under the stress of the fire, the two natural foes found strength in each other. “I’m sure it boosted their morale to be together at that critical time,” Di Sieno says.

  {LOUISIANA, U.S.A., 2005}

  The Bobtailed Dog and the Bobtailed Cat

  DOG

  KINGDOM: Animalia

  PHYLUM: Chordata

  CLASS: Mammalia

  ORDER: Carnivora

  FAMILY: Canidae

  GENUS: Canis

  SPECIES: Canis lupus familiaris

  According to the Humane Society of the united States, 6 to 8 million stray dogs and cats end up in animal shelters each year. Of these, approximately half are euthanized.

  When Hurricane Katrina slammed into New Orleans, Louisiana, in August 2005, thousands of pet owners were forced to rush to high ground without their animals. Most left food and water to tide their pets over, expecting to collect them within a day or two. But few were able to return home, and at least 250,000 domestic animals were suddenly on their own.

  Scores of pets died. Many hit the streets, relying on their most basic instincts to survive. Some joined packs for protection. These two found each other.

  The dog, a female, had a bobbed tail. So did the cat, a male. The dog had been tied up but had broken away, and a few links of chain still hung down from around her neck. The cat followed the clinking strand as it dragged on the ground. They were likely wandering the city that way for many weeks. No one knows if they shared a home before the storm, but when a construction worker first took an interest in the animals, they were clearly together. In fact, the dog was quite protective of her feline friend, growling if anyone got too close to him.

  Rescuers from Best Friends Animal Sanctuary brought the pair to a temporary shelter in Metairie, a New Orleans suburb, and named them Bobbi and Bob Cat, for the cropped tails.

  “We were set up to house dogs and cats separately,” says the sanctuary’s Barbara Williamson, who handles media relations and also helped watch over the two Bobbies after their capture. “But Bobbi wasn’t having it. She had a piercing bark that would go right through you. And as long as they were separated, she got very upset and loud.” So the volunteers cobbled together a cage inside a longer cage, to give the animals access to each other without taking a chance on either getting hurt. “As long as Bobbi was near her kitty, she was calm,” Barbara says.

  The discovery that Bob Cat was fully blind, probably since birth, made the animals’ relationship all the more touching. Bobbi the dog had truly been leading him and keeping him safe. “You could tell by the way she managed his movements,” Barbara says. “She’d bark at him, as if telling him when to go and when to stop. She’d bump her hind end against him, herding him the right way. It was incredible to watch.” Despite his handicap, Bob Cat “was very confident, almost regal,” Barbara says, “while Bobbi was more of a clumsy teenager. The contrast was a riot.”

  News about the dog–cat duo quickly got out through the media, and Best Friends found just the right person to take these special animals. But sadly, not long after the adoption, Bob Cat became ill and died. The new owners decided the best medicine for the dog was to bring another rescue cat into the household, and they found one that, coincidentally, had a cropped tail. Bobbi the dog accepted the new feline right away.

  “For me, the Bobbies demonstrated the depth of feelings animals can have for one another,” says Barbara.

  Luckily, that emotional depth does at times include humans. The pet salvage operation after Katrina was one of the largest ever accomplished following a natural disaster. Caring volunteers and rescue organizations worked tirelessly to help find new homes for thousands of animals.

  {CALIFORNIA, U.S.A., 2009}

  The Cheetahs and the Anatolian Shepherds

  CHEETAH

  KINGDOM: Animalia

  PHYLUM: Chordata

  CLASS: Mammalia

  ORDER: Carnivora

  FAMILY: Felidae

  GENUS: Acinonyx

  SPECIES: Acinonyx jubatus

  ANATOLIAN SHEPHERD

  A guardian breed known for its loyalty and independence, Anatolian shepherds originated in turkey more than 6,000 years ago.

  In the African Country of Namibia, where farmers and ranchers eke out a living on parched sandy soils, the cheetah is no friend to man. Livestock is a big and tasty temptation to the wild cats, especially during times of drought, when natural prey on the savanna is scarce. And when cheetahs come after livestock, people often shoot them, driven to protect their valuable resource.

  The Cheetah Conservation Fund came up with an inspired alternative: offer dogs to farmers to be raised as guardians of the flocks. Anatolian shepherds, first bred in central Turkey thousands of years ago, were chosen for the job. The dogs are big and loyal, and know how to scare off an already skittish cat like a cheetah. (Wild cheetahs face formidable foes in nature; their ability and readiness to sprint is their best defense.) Keeping the cheetahs from preying on sheep and goats protects them from farmers’ bullets and helps take the stain off their reputation—both good strategies for keeping the species around in the future. The program has been wildly successful.

  Now, here’s a neat little twist: At zoos in the United States, those same shepherd dogs are being brought in not to chase cheetahs away, but to be their best friends.

  “We’ve found so many benefits to pairing young cheetahs with dome
stic dogs,” says Kim Caldwell, animal training manager at the San Diego Zoo’s Safari Park. Foremost, as they grow up together, the dog is a security blanket for this animal that’s hardwired to be cautious, she says. Body language is key, and the dog—calm, loving, and adaptable—helps the cheetahs to relax and accept unfamiliar situations. That makes life less stressful for both the animals and the trainers. “Cheetahs respond differently to us than to another four-legged furry animal with a wagging tail,” Kim says. “A dog will lick the cheetah’s ears, let it pounce, and chew on him. Better to give the cats a 130-pound dog as a toy than one of us. That way they can really wrestle and play together, which is an important part of learning and socialization.”

  The San Diego Zoo and Safari Park have also used various mixed-breed pups in their cheetah program, but the shepherds are the best fit. “Some mutts can be just unstoppable,” Kim says. The shepherds are very mellow as puppies. Though always ready to roughhouse, they’ll also lie down like a big rug and groom or be groomed—which cheetahs do a lot of the time. “Re-member,” Kim says, “while most dogs could play twenty-four hours a day, cats want to sleep for twenty of those!”

  The animals do have some time apart, and they always eat separately. “Dogs inhale and cats chew,” Kim says, so feeding time is where aggression could occur. But once a happy pairing is made between puppy and kitten, “they’re companions for life.”

  {GEORGIA, U.S.A., 2008}

  The Cockatoo and the Cat

  WHITE COCKATOO

  KINGDOM: Animalia

  PHYLUM: Chordata

  CLASS: Aves

  ORDER: Psittaciformes

  FAMILY: Cacatuidae

  GENUS: Cacatua

  SPECIES: Cacatuaalba

  Scratch a cat behind the ears and make a friend for life. But what if the one doing the scratching has feathers, a beak, and bird feet? That doesn’t seem to bother Lucky, a young stray cat that was fortunate enough to be rescued by Libby Miller and Gay Fortson of Savannah, Georgia. After his adoption, Lucky found himself cohabitating with Coco, a brash and outspoken cockatoo that took to the feline with a gentle claw.

  Coco was perched on the foot of the owners’ sleigh bed one morning, and Lucky, who had not yet met the bird up close, must have been hiding under the bed. When Libby came into the room, “there they were, together on the bed.” She worried for a moment that one would hurt the other, but “Coco was being so gentle! She rubbed Lucky with one foot, then walked back and forth over her head—which Lucky didn’t seem to mind at all.” Libby grabbed her camera and recorded the strange interaction. The video eventually made it to the Internet and has since gone viral. “People all around the world love seeing how they get along,” she says.

  The two animals continue to be affectionate housemates, despite the bird’s potential to do harm with her strong beak and claws. Coco sticks her fingerlike tongue in the little cat’s ear, or kneads and nuzzles her, seemingly fascinated by the taste of the soft fur and squishy feel of the body. And Lucky, realizing a good thing, rolls over and offers up her belly to encourage the massage.

  At the end of the day, the cat–bird pair happily sits in one of their owners’ laps together, “just chilling out,” along with the couple’s four dogs. The night doesn’t feel right until their pets have all been let out to bond with one another, the ladies say. “We just love that our animals love being together.”

  {WEST VIRGINIA, U.S.A., 2008}

  The Dachshund and the Piglet

  DOMESTIC PIG

  KINGDOM: Animalia

  PHYLUM: Chordata

  CLASS: Mammalia

  ORDER: Artiodactyla

  FAMILY: Suidae

  GENUS: Sus

  SPECIES: S. domestica

  DACHSHUND

  First bred in Germany in the 1600s, the dachshund’s long, low body and keen sense of smell made it ideally suited to hunting badgers hiding inside their burrows below ground.

  One bone-chilling night, on a bed of straw in a West Virginia barn, a very lucky pig was born.

  Pink was a runt by all measures. When he was born, neither Johanna Kerby, who helped the sow deliver the litter that night, nor her husband and daughter, who were watching, thought the tiny piglet would survive outside his mother’s womb. Luckily, Pink was given a chance at life by an unlikely benefactor.

  Of a litter of eleven, Pink was the last to emerge, and it was immediately clear he wasn’t like his brothers and sisters. Pigs are normally born with their eyes open, and it takes just a minute before they are walking and nursing. They’re also about three to four pounds. Pink was less than a pound, with his eyes sealed shut against the world. He was frail, virtually hairless, his tiny voice barely a squeak. “He just lay in the box and quacked,” Johanna recalls. “He didn’t even try to walk. He was just too weak.” When she held the baby to his mother’s teat to nurse, he wouldn’t suck. And soon enough, his stronger siblings were pushing him around, trying to get Pink out of the bed, to rid themselves of their weakest competitor.

  Johanna had an idea. The family dog, a small red dachshund named Tink, had always been loving to people and maternal to other animals. And she had a thing for pigs.

  The first time Tink was introduced to piglets, years before in the Kerbys’ hog barn, “she rounded them all up into a corner and starting licking them,” Johanna recalls. “They were twenty-five pounds, much bigger than she was, but Tink didn’t care. She was so happy and wiggly—she had a great big grin on her face.” Another time she nearly drowned in the soupy, thick mud of the hog pen when she ventured in, just to get near the animals.

  Tink had given birth to two pups herself recently, but one had been stillborn, and she was clearly distressed by the loss. Johanna decided to put Tink and Pink together and see if the pup would accept the pig as just another offspring. The same trick had worked recently with another dog’s puppies; Tink had happily tucked them in among her own.

  Piglet fostering went as smoothly as the puppy placement had. Once Pink was let into the dog’s crate, “Tink went crazy. She licked him thoroughly and even chewed off the rest of his umbilical cord,” says Johanna. Then she tucked him under her chin to keep him warm. And when the other puppies were ready to nurse, she used her nose to encourage Pink to join them at her belly.

  To the Kerbys’ relief, Pink latched on to Tink and began to feed. “Tink treated him like royalty; I think he was actually her favorite,” Johanna says. With such special care, Pink soon caught up in size and weight to his siblings, though he was never interested in rejoining the pigs. His family now was strictly canine, and he’d romp and wrestle with the puppies as if nothing were amiss.

  {FLORIDA, U.S.A., 2009}

  The Diver and the Manta Ray

  HUMAN BEING

  KINGDOM: Animalia

  PHYLUM: Chordata

  CLASS: Mammalia

  ORDER: Primates

  FAMILY: Hominidae

  GENUS: Homo

  SPECIES: Homo sapiens

  MANTA RAY

  KINGDOM: Animalia

  PHYLUM: Chordata

  CLASS: Chondrichthyes

  ORDER: Myliobatiformes

  FAMILY: Mobulidae

  GENUS: Manta

  SPECIES: Manta birostris

  Sean Payne has clocked thousands of hours scuba diving in the sea, happily meeting countless animals eye to eye, from minuscule reef shrimp to colossal whale sharks. But when this dreadlocked boat captain talks about a particular encounter with a manta ray, it’s as though he’s describing his first love.

  He wasn’t out looking for rays. Sean was assisting underwater photographers with a project on goliath grouper, a sometimes 800-pound fish that shares the ray’s environment off the Florida coast. He was diving at twilight on a shipwreck ninety feet down where the big fish congregate, shaking a rattle used to get the other divers’ attention. “Suddenly, I saw this little black ray coming toward me,” he recalls. (Size is relative, of course. Adult mantas, the largest rays, can grow to mor
e than 20 feet across and weigh some 3,000 pounds.) Rays are often curious about divers, but usually the fish will sweep by and land on the sandy bottom out of reach. This one, an adolescent, apparently wanted a massage from human hands.

  “She slipped right up underneath me—I actually had to hold her off to keep her from pushing against me from beneath,” says Sean. “Her skin felt like velvet cloth stretched over ribs and muscle, an incredible texture.” The ray literally danced with the diver, leading him in a bizarre circular tango that forced her body into his hands. As he ran his hands over her skin, her wing tips vibrated like a dog’s leg during a particularly good belly scratch. “I was so into the encounter by then, I couldn’t tear myself away,” Sean says. “The thing about rays is usually you have to chase them just to get a close look. Here was one that approached me on its own; she zeroed in on me and wanted to be touched. It was as if I were petting and meeting eyes with my German shepherd—I felt a real connection between us. Truly awesome.”

  After a few minutes of man–fish bonding, Sean got the signal to get back to work, and reluctantly he moved away. The young ray—standoffish toward the other divers—stayed nearby. And when Sean headed toward the surface (unlike his ray friend, he needs air from above), she hovered right below him as if making sure he ascended safely.

  “I was supposed to be holding underwater lights on the goliath groupers as they spawned, for the photographers, and I missed the whole thing because of the ray,” Sean says. “But it was so worth it to have that experience.” He named the young animal Marina after his daughter, “my other little girl.”