Unlikely Friendships - Jennifer S. Holland [5]
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