The Piglet and the Rottweiler
Here’s a reputation-busting story that shows that no particular breed of dog is automatically mean to the core. Sasha the rottweiler is in fact so darn sweet that by the end of this tale, you may want to adopt one or two of your own.
The recipient of Sasha’s kindness was a piglet named Apple Sauce (the dad’s name was Apple). Poor Apple Sauce was the littlest in the litter, unlucky number 13, and was rejected by her mother and overwhelmed by her dozen siblings. As mentioned in other stories, it is often the case in the animal world that the runt in the family doesn’t make it; resources like mother’s milk go to the larger, stronger animals that are more likely to thrive. “A mother might decide she doesn’t want anything to do with the little one,” explains Heidi Rhiann, at that time a pig breeder living in Llanfyllin, Powys, in Wales. “She’ll send it away, won’t feed it or nuzzle it, saving her attention for the others.” It seems sad to us, but it makes sense to creatures that are just trying to pass on their genes as efficiently as possible.
But in this case, the piglet got a lucky break.
Heidi and her family had a small farm in the Welsh countryside where they bred a variety of animals, including micropigs, and grew fruits and vegetables. When they heard about the plight of Apple Sauce, they decided to try bringing up the piglet—of a breed called Piétrain that when fully grown wouldn’t be micro by any means. And, knowledgeable about animal behavior, they had an inspired idea on how to do it successfully.
Sasha the rottweiler had just weeks before given birth to a litter of eight puppies. With her motherly hormones on full alert, she was fascinated when Heidi brought the piglet home. “Sasha was watching us work with the piglet; she kept coming over and licking and loving her while we were feeding her with a bottle. And the pig cuddled and nuzzled up to Sasha right away.”
Knowing that Apple Sauce would do even better with a real mom’s milk and the warmth of another furry mammal, Heidi wrapped the pig in a puppy-smelling blanket to mingle the two species’ scents and put the pig in with Sasha and family. The experiment worked beautifully: Apple Sauce snuggled in with her new siblings and locked onto mom, just another hungry puppy doing what hungry puppies do. “She truly became part of the litter,” Heidi says. “Everyone treated her like a pup—Sasha mothered her like the others, turning her over, cleaning her, licking her eyes—and she took to the part. It was lovely.”
The family wasn’t entirely surprised. Heidi says, “She’s such a lovable dog, seems not to have a nasty bone in her. She loves everyone to death, flops on her belly or jumps up when you sit down—she’s an overgrown lap dog.”
Now, not all stories can have a perfectly happy ending. It turns out that little Apple Sauce, despite the attentive rottie, just wasn’t meant to be. “One day she was playing around, jumping and running and acting like a puppy,” Heidi recalls, “and then suddenly something went wrong. We don’t know exactly what—sometimes it just happens with young farm animals. We came home and she’d passed away.” She points out that a mother animal that ignores a baby may instinctively know there’s something truly wrong with it; this may be why Apple Sauce’s mom wouldn’t care for her. And that suggests that Heidi and Sasha couldn’t have done anything to save the little porker from her fate.
Piétrain Pig
The Piétrain breed takes its name from its village of origin, Piétrain, Belgium. These pigs express a gene that makes them extra susceptible to stress, so breeders have been working on the genetics (through crossbreeding with different pig strains) to improve their health and temperament.
Still, Sasha was devastated, Heidi says. “She loved and cared for that pig as if it were her own. The puppies felt the same way. You’d see them all curled up in a heap, pig mingled in with pups, no discrimination. And now one was missing.” The family of humans was sad about the loss, too. “We’d been looking forward to her growing up. Piétrain pigs—the type Apple Sauce was—get really large, very broad across the rear, not like the micropigs that we breed. They’re the Arnold Schwarzeneggers of pigs. It would have been interesting to see how the relationship evolved.”
Looking back, “I have no doubt,” Heidi says, “that Sasha loved Apple Sauce. She treated her as family, gave her extra weeks of life. And when people came over, she would strut around, showing off all her puppies. It just happened that one of those puppies was a pig.”
Section Two
Eat, Play, Love
“Love comforteth like sunshine after rain.”
—William Shakespeare
How wonderful the life that is filled with good food, great fun, and sweet company. This section celebrates unlikely playmates tumbling through life together, enjoying such riches as best friends do.
In young nonhuman animals, play teaches pecking order and survival skills. So is that why these dissimilar creatures turn to each other to wrestle and chase and roll around in the grass? Maybe. But play is also fun, plain and simple. So is just hanging out together, sometimes in silence. Like human kids (and a lot of adults), other mammals seek out both fun and companionship. After all, passing the time alone can get, well, lonely.
So, please enjoy these stories of loving friendships just for the fun of them.
{Bristol, England, 2009}
The Giraffe and the Goat
I have a longtime friend who is 6 feet 3 inches tall. She’s solid-boned and strong. To talk to her, I have to tilt my chin up 30 degrees. On my best-posture days, I can’t quite reach 5 feet 2 inches, and despite all the yoga I do, my bony legs and arms appear toothpick weak. She and I didn’t grow up together. To me she’s always been lofty and to her I’m forever shoulder-high. When I see photos of us together, I have to smile. We appear so mismatched, yet we are the best of friends.
Gerald and Eddie make a similarly incongruous pair, and seem similarly fond of each other. His head may sit 15 feet above the ground, but Gerald the giraffe, with his roots in Africa, looks down on Eddie the goat, a local English bloke, with nothing but respect.
The two animals live at Noah’s Ark Zoo in Bristol, England, where they came together to ease Gerald’s loneliness while he waited for a mate. This love story begins in 2006, when Gerald arrived at the Ark. At first the giraffe was nervous and tentative. Then he met Eddie.
Giraffe
That crazy long neck can weigh 600 pounds, yet males swing them around and smash them into each other during ritual battles to be the dominant bull.
Eddie is a gregarious and pushy goat, born right at Noah’s Ark. Proving that opposites do indeed attract, the social little goat and the trembling tower of giraffe became smitten with each other. Just being around Eddie seemed to make Gerald more comfortable with his new surroundings. It was like they’d known each other from the start.
Predictably, “Eddie was in charge of the pair,” says zookeeper Sammi Luxa. Eddie would lead, and Gerald would follow. They’d stand side by side and eat together, then Gerald would lean down to the goat’s eye level so they could rub their faces together. “Once Eddie even tried to jump on Gerald’s neck,” Sammi says. “They were truly like loving brothers.” Despite many traits suggesting otherwise, “I think Gerald might have thought he was a goat!”
When it came time for Gerald to meet a lady giraffe, Eddie was like a best buddy, the perfect wingman. Genevieve arrived and Gerald seemed unsure how to behave with his own kind. “He was too much for her,” Sammi says, of the suddenly overbearing male. But the goat—as if responsible for this new, more confident Gerald—stepped in to help. “He was like a relationship counselor, helping to get them together. Eddie was very friendly with Genevieve, and slowly Gerald followed the goat’s lead.” Once the giraffe showed interest in the new girl, the staff moved Eddie to be with other goats, particularly a billy goat called Hercules that needed a pal. He also buddied up with a newly arrived male camel—“Eddie is a friend to all,” Sammi says.
Giraff
e
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Mammalia
Order: Artiodactyla
Family: Giraffidae
Genus: Giraffa
Species: Giraffa camelopardalis
Best of all, “Gerald was for the first time interested in another giraffe; it was like he finally grew up.” That interest turned to something more, and Gerald and Genny now have a baby called George who lives with his parents in the Giraffe House. Though no longer in touch, Eddie might be happy to know that he is partly to thank for the happy family’s success.
Meanwhile, could there be a new interspecies adoration in the making? Perhaps. “Baby George the giraffe just loves our new baby zebra Zag, born just a few months after him,” Sammi says. Apparently, like father, like son.
{New South Wales, Australia, 2012}
The Dolphin and the Sea Lion
When dolphins play, they play with all their being. Have you ever seen them, either at a zoo, marine park, or, if you’ve been very fortunate, in the wild? They leap. They fly. They tease one another. They pass things back and forth. They chirp and click and squeal. If you listen really hard, you’ll swear they’re laughing.
I once had the honor of playing with a wild dolphin off the coast of Ireland. I’d heard about the friendly animal from locals; she’d often show up when boats were anchored in a certain area, curious about humans in her element. The boat captain knew just where to go, and I pulled on my scuba gear as we motored to the spot. The sea was cold and choppy, but I jumped right in, sank to the bottom, and waited. Hopeful.
Within a few minutes, I sensed a live presence nearby. And then a beautiful dolphin flew past me. She was so fast I was caught off guard; she then turned and zipped back the other way, nearly grazing my shoulder. I think she enjoyed surprising me with each pass.
When the dolphin came back a third time, she had a long strip of sea grass across her beak, which she let fall at my flippered feet. I picked it up and swam around with it for a bit, then “tossed” it away. She took it up again, circled, then again let it sink. I think we were playing dolphin fetch. And in an unforgettable moment, I found that if I turned upside down and dug around in the sand with my hands, she copied my posture and poked the sand with her nose, tail up. Being a dolphin’s playmate was a true thrill.
Indo-Pacific Bottlenose Dolphin
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Mammalia
Order: Cetacea
Family: Delphinidae
Genus: Tursiops
Species: Tursiops aduncus
Okay, I know this story isn’t called “The Dolphin and the Writer,” but I wanted to share my happy memory because it came to mind as I researched an unlikely duo from the sea. At a marine park in Australia, there’s a sea lion–dolphin pair of pals that play together like two little kids. They swim together and toss toys back and forth (given sea grass, they might just play fetch!); the dolphin chirps and the sea lion barks in response. There’s an exuberance that builds between the pair that sets them apart from the rest of the animals. Together, they are joyful and light, the way I felt around the dolphin in Ireland.
The dolphin, a bottlenose, is Jet; the Australian sea lion, Miri. They were both born at Coffs Harbour Pet Porpoise Pool in New South Wales, the largest marine mammal facility in Australia, which opened in 1970 as an animal rescue and rehabilitation center. Now interactive entertainment is a large part of the park’s mission, and Jet and Miri are a big part of the show. According to park staff Aaron Tolley and Paige Sinclair, during “free time” when the park’s various marine animals have the freedom to play together in each other’s pools, they noticed cute interactions between Jet and Miri. The trainers decided to capitalize on the animals’ special relationship, enhancing it by training them to perform together. “In the wild, sea lions and dolphins would be competitors for food, certainly not friends,” says Paige. But they were so at ease with each other.
Australian sea lion
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Mammalia
Order: Carnivora
Family: Otariidae
Genus: Noephoca
Species: Neophoca cinerea
“They’re happy side by side,” says Aaron. “Sometimes if Jet takes too long eating his fish, Miri will come grab it by the tail and pull part of it out of his mouth. Most animals probably wouldn’t put up with that, but Jet lets her; he shares it with her.”
“In play drive, they’re well matched,” says Paige. “Both are young and inquisitive, both love toys—though they have different favorites. Miri likes chew ropes and Jet likes monkeying around with basketballs and footballs.” Jet whistles and Miri, when she’s in the mood, coughs up a reply. Though they obviously speak different languages, they don’t seem to see each other as different. “They’re as comfortable together as if they were the same species,” she says. “We don’t see that kind of ease among the other animals.”
One affectionate encounter between Jet and Miri was clearly a favorite. During practice for a show, the trainer gave the command for the two animals to slide out on stage together on their bellies, landing front and center, side by side. “They both followed directions and came sliding out,” Aaron recalls, “but then Miri rushed over to Jet and started kissing him on the nose. It wasn’t set up, it just happened. It was quite sweet and funny.”
“They seem to really trust each other, to know neither will hurt the other,” Paige says. “There’s a special bond that you just wouldn’t see if they hadn’t grown up here, with the freedom to play and get to know animals unlike themselves.”
Dolphin
Dolphins heal remarkably quickly and fully from shark bites and other wounds. Scientists hope we can learn something from the animals’ powerful immune systems.
{Devon, England, 2012}
The Tiny Calf and the Farm Dogs
Clementine was born too soon. It was ten days before her due date and she was half the weight she needed to be when she left the warmth of her mother’s womb to face the wintry earth on Locksbeam Farm in Devon, England.
But this tiny calf was lucky. Though her mother was unhealthy and had no milk to give, her human owner, Tracey Martin, wasn’t about to let her die. It was a cold, cold winter, so Clementine, as Tracey called her, got to live inside.
“It’s a farmhouse kitchen, with a big cast-iron stove that radiates good, constant heat,” Tracey says. “That’s what Clementine needed. She seemed to have no muscle at all; she was a bag of bones. We knew she was underdeveloped and would require intensive care if we were going to save her.”
That care included not just the hot stove but the biggest dog bed Tracey could get—one that easily held both her collie and her retriever–poodle mix. Once Clementine entered the kitchen, the dog bed became an interspecies napping ground. Tracey tucked towels around the baby cow, just 23 inches to the shoulder, and since there was plenty of room to spare, the dogs attempted to join her. It was a little crowded for a trio, but at any time at least one dog was nestled in next to the baby. “When Bess, the collie, was in there, she’d lick the calf—it was so fun to watch. Or if Bess was in the bed and Clementine got in after, she’d be so careful where she put her feet—she was so considerate, not wanting to step on the dog.”
Cow
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Mammalia
Order: Artiodactyla
Family: Bovidae
Genus: Bos
Species: Bos primigenius
Clementine had her outdoor fun, too. “Mostly she slept like a child at first. She was so tiny, like a premature baby. But then she started going out with the dogs. She’d hop, skip, and jump around on the lawn, and the dogs would follow her, infected
by her mood.” Instinctively the collie would try to round up the calf, bounding along next to her, as if it were the dog’s job to keep her in line. And one afternoon, Tracey says, the dogs went off to play with Tracey’s four kids, who were visiting their grandparents across the road. “Clementine was out on the lawn, and I guess she heard them on the other side of the road and was not happy to have been left behind. She squeezed through a hole in a hedge and crossed over to join them. She was very determined to be part of the pack.”
It was that determination, no doubt, plus the companionship with other animals, that got Clementine through those early weeks when she was still underdeveloped. “She truly had the will to survive,” Tracey says.
The calf became a bit of a local celebrity, for her size and stubbornness, and for her partnership with the pups. “I don’t think Clementine thought in terms of calves, dogs, and people. We were just social beings like she was, the only ones she knew.” She and the dogs were in and out together all the time, lying down together, chasing each other around, and going nose to nose. Interestingly, when Clementine was eventually introduced to other calves, “she was confused by them,” Tracey recalls. “Really didn’t know what to make of them, their smells and sounds. She was much more comfortable with the dogs than with her own kind.”
At a year old, Clementine now lives on another part of the Martin’s farm, independent of her dog family. But even without canine encouragement, her determination to thrive continues, says Tracey, and she just keeps on growing. Darling Clementine is miniature no more.
Unlikely Loves Page 5
