Dogs can be so gentle

[Norman]

I had the scare of my life the other day. I have a black lab spayed bitch, Charlie, just over a year old and two 18 month old brother rats, Ed and Norman. Well the other day I had the boys cage open as I was putting some yummies in there for them. Out of the blue Ed shot out the cage, down the sofa and under the table their cage sits on. He is never that fast moving and never tried to get out the cage when food is on offer so was a total surprise. Norman was also trying to get out the cage. Charlie shot from the other side of the room to under the table where Ed was. I couldn't shut the cage quickly as Norman was now sitting it on the open door which was horizantal and if I slammed it shut I would have caught his tail. He was avoiding being picked up so it seemed an eternity before I got him back in and the cage shut. Once shut I turn round expecting to see god only knows what but instead I saw Charlie sitting all proud in her bed at the other side of the room with Ed in her. His head and front legs out one side and tail out the other. I was about to tell her off when she walked calmly over to me and deposited a soggy Ed onto my lap. He was fine, just covered in saliva. He was totally unharmed, not even shaken by being in the dogs mouth,I put him back into the cage and he started to clean himself straight away but appeared fine.

I have always said that Charlie thinks of the rats as her pups. She is very curious and protective of their cage. Norman has poor eyesight and walks into things and off their, now very low shelf, and Charlie will rush over to the cage looking in. She has growled at me previously when I approached the cage. I am only allowed to approach once she is satisified they are ok. She constantly has her nose in their cage and they lick her nose through the bars. When the boys are in their balls when I clean them out they chase Charlie, roll into her then roll away very fast so she chases them. So cute to watch considering the size difference.

Anyone else had something like this happen that is bizarre but cute?

[RavenRose]

Well, with rats, mice and other small animals such as them, my husky, Angel, would eat them in that situation, but kittens are a totally different story. I currently have a 5 1/2 or 6 week old kitten that she adores. She lets him crawl all over her. The other night they were both on the couch and he walked up to her face, stared her straight in the eyes and swatted her on the nose. She just looked at me like "mom, what's that all about?" and laid her head down. She's scared one of my other cats to death multiple times. Carma lays on the back of the couch right in front of the window. Every now and then Angel will get in a mood where she wants Carma to play. One day I thought I was going to have a dead cat on my hands because she barked, started growling and charged. All she did was jump onto the couch and poked Carma in the side with her nose, did a play bow and started barking at her.

My mom's golden, Kiowa, has done something similar to Charlie though. All of our dogs stalk the birds outside and both huskies have caught quite a few. Kiowa caught one one day though and didn't hurt it at all. I heard a scuffling noise, turned around and saw a tail sticking out of his mouth. I paniced, yelled "Kiowa, no!" and he looked at me like "I'm sorry, what did I do?" and set the bird down. It sat there for a second, stunned, then flew away, well... almost... one of the huskies was too close :(

[Martina]

:eek: oh those are such cute stories, :D Sheri once caught a steller jay with her paws and was shocked that she caught it and then let it go, :) another time there was a squirrel that was hurt at the bottom of a tree and she just sniffed it. it was really sweet like she knew ( :( :crybucket the squrriel died at the animal rescue we brought it to:( :crybucket )and another squirrel came in our house and she just looked at it, she probably thought we got yet another animal, she wasnt that impressed :rolleyes: . Margo helped "nurse" Kinky, (when she was to little and needed milk replacer), she didnt mind at all about the sharp kitten claws kneading. and they both are such sweethearts about all of our animals, arnt i lucky? ;)

[Karen T]

Monty saved my life from the evil destructive garbage truck. We had just got him (Bernese) so he was about 16 weeks old. We'd had him only for a few weeks at this point and I was outside with him. I was sitting along the back fence weekding the garden and I could hear the garbage truck coming up the back lane. He's never seen one at this point so I was curious as to how he would react. Well, as the truck noisily passed by our fence, Monty took off, ran away, ran back to me and grabbed myshirt in his mouth and tugged as if to say "C'mon Mom! It's dangerous!". When I didn't move he let go and ran for the gate to the house.
I've never laughed so hard - poor guy tries to save me from what he thinks is imminent danger and I don't budge! He , of course, looked at me accusingly like it was all my fault he got scared.