BoonLua, a long-tailed macaque, lives with Toby, a rabbit, in the Ayutthaya province, about 50 miles north of Bangkok. This Sept. 6, 2008, photo shows BoonLua at age 6. BoonLua lost both legs and one arm during a dog attack three years earlier. He dragged himself to a nearby temple where he received medical treatment and survived. He now lives in a custom built enclosure with the rabbit.
Auan, a 7-year-old female cat, shares a meal with Jeena, a 3-year-old male mouse, at a farmer's house in the central province of Phichit, 281 miles north of Bangkok, Aug. 7, 2002. The animals' owners say Auan found Jeena three years earlier and afterward became his playmate and protector. They said Auan warded off dogs.
A farm worker holds a piglet and two of three tiger cubs rejected by their mother at a zoo in Dnepropetrovsk, Ukraine, on Sept. 24. A pig at a farm in eastern Ukraine is nursing the three newborn tigers along with a dozen of its own piglets
When Florida farm owner Jim FavreJustify Fullau looked out his window July 20, 2009, during a typical summer downpour, he was mortified to see a litter of day-old piglets struggling to stave off the storm's rising waters in Lee County. After bringing the piglets inside to dry off, Favreau was astounded anew: His dog, a Rottweiler-pit bull mix, was nursing the house's newest denizens, ABC affiliate WZVN reported. "It's amazing, it's awesome," Angel Roman, Favreau's friend, told WZVN. "It's good to see, though. It's good to see good things in life and this is one of them."
Perhaps maternity is species-blind, or so recent events would suggest. After a red panda unexpectedly gave birth to two cubs at the Taiyuan Zoo in northern China, and then promptly abandoned them, zoo officials called on a recently pregnant dog to step in as surrogate mother, China's state news agency reported. The cubs, who have grown to a length of 8 inches since their June 25, 2009, birth, join a dwindling population. Wildlife experts estimate there are fewer than 2,500 adult red pandas in the world."
Isabella, a yellow lab at the Safari Zoological Park east of Caney, Kan., has adopted three white tiger cubs that were abandoned by their mother
It was puppy love for a duck and puppy in China. The Chinese family had a pet duck, and when they took in an abandoned pup, the two became fast friends. They play together, they nap together, and they are rarely out of each other's sight.
