via Gael Marshall Chaney

via Brenda Sexton

via Bobbie Hanby

via Mary Rives Brown

via Chris Anderson

via Joanne Starodub

Bailey spent the last 14 years of her life with Brenda Sexton and her husband Dwayne. Brenda describes the improbable path of how Bailey became a treasured member of the household:

Bailey is a case of dog adopting human. We decided some years back that since we had a large fenced yard, we would see about fostering some dogs until they found forever homes.

Bailey was our first try.

As a puppy, Bailey had been slated to be euthanized at a local shelter because she was very sick and vet funds were not available. Her first mother, charmed by her sweet nature, adopted her anyway and paid sizable vet bills to have her nursed back to health.

Then, her family had to move out of state and could not take her. They were not willing to abandon her to a shelter again and worked hard to find her a home.

But their clock ran out and we were considering being a foster home anyway, so we took her in.

She was so cute and well mannered that a taker was quickly found. However, Bailey had her own ideas. At first opportunity she ran out the door and into a nearby briar patch. The weather was horrid, yet Bailey would not come when her new family called her or tried to entice her with food or water.

Finally, they called me and I went over. She came immediately, drenched, matted, torn from thorns, stinking, and with the biggest dog grin you ever saw.

After a bath and food, I asked her new family if they still wanted her and they did. So back she went – only to escape again to the briar patch.

This time, their 7 year old daughter walked up and down the edge of the patch calling, “Bailey, its Brenda. Come out!”. Bailey would have none of it.

Once again I went over and once again a fetid, torn but ecstatic little dog came running out.

So this time, we all decided that if Bailey wanted to live with us this badly, we would let that be.

Bailey never made any attempt to leave our home and, I believe, lived a happy life in the home she chose.

We were not astute enough to know that she was supposed to be with us – but fortunately – she was.

Supreme Grand Champion Dadaelis Palu of Leopardfuzz

Flippycat gets wrapped!

via Chris Anderson

via James McElhatten

When Surya the orangutan meets a hound dog by the river, the two carry on like long lost friends.

Unlikely Animal Friends : http://channel.nationalgeographic.com…

via Jeff Taylor

Link: The Pigeon and the Bunnies

These little bunnies, about 6 days old, were attacked by a dog and orphaned. Two out of the litter of five did not survive, and these three were not doing very well.

Enter Noah—the non-releasable, one-legged homing pigeon/rock dove that we have here in rehab. (Photos © Bob Lenham)

Noah kept going over to the bunny cage and looking in—even sleeping in front of the door to the cage. Then, 2 days ago, I only counted 2 bunnies in the cage, so I hurriedly picked Noah up from the front of the cage so I could look inside. And to my surprise—there was the tiny bunny—under Noah’s wing—sound asleep!

Now, Noah helps out with many rescue babies here at the ranch…

How wonderful it is to have a full-time soft-feathered nurturer here at the rescue ranch! He cuddles with all the babies as they snuggle under his warm feathers…and he “coos” as if singing them to sleep with a lullaby.

Noah is truly, truly a God-send.

He will cover you with His feathers
And under His wings you will find refuge.
Psalm 91:4

via Sybil Harmon

Gabriel & Stanley, Golden Retriever & Tuxedo Cat, are best buddies.

FOUND Animals and their People Gallery

FOUND (www.foundmyanimal.com) designs collars and leashes to help raise public awareness of the urgent need for animal adoption. 25% of ALL our profits go directly to the Louis Animal Foundation, a unique non-profit group dedicated to spaying/neutering and providing homes for animals who have not yet ‘found’ their people. Our founder rescued Walter, one of her adopted pups, through the foundation and was inspired to donate a large portion of our profits to such an important organization.

About Louis Animal Foundation:

Somewhere between 10 and 15 million dogs and cats die each year. Some are abandoned, some turned over to shelters where the vast majority are killed and some die in misery on city streets or in the country from starvation, accidents or acts of cruelty. The Louis Animal Foundation is named in honor of Herbert & Daisy Louis. In their memory, and in memory of all the Louis animals extending back nearly 100 years, the Foundation, founded by Barbara Louis, seeks to solve some of the underlying problems of animal overpopulation.

The Foundation operates a mobile medical unit where veterinarians can spay and neuter animals in rural communities where access to these services is often both physically and financially limited. Animals rescued by the Foundation from rural areas, overcrowded shelters and people needing assistance placing their pet are given foster homes until they are adopted. The foundation is brilliant about stretching every dollar that is donated. Every leash we sell helps, but any additional support you can offer is deeply appreciated. Right now, the foundation needs a pulse oximeter and a second anesthesia machine. Medical donations are welcome as well. You may contact the organization directly with any questions or donations. Thanks for your support!

Link: Tails of Love – AARP Magazine – Lifestyle

Early Spring floods in 2007 had inundated the flat neighborhoods and farms around the eastern Indiana house of the Keesling family. Their home’s basement had taken on some 30,000 gallons of water, and a gasoline pump had been set up to empty it. After the family went to bed, a crack in the pump’s venting system caused carbon monoxide to pour into the home’s heat ducts.

Cathy Keesling had closed all the windows in the house, save one on the first floor where Winnie, the gray-and-black-striped cat the family had rescued from a barn years before, was sleeping. When deadly gas filled the house, Cathy’s teenage son, Michael, fell unconscious in the hallway. Cathy and her husband, Eric, were slowly sinking into unconsciousness as well. Winnie had been breathing the clear night air, so she was the only living creature in the house that could tell something was wrong. But rather than escaping through the open window, Winnie raced over to Cathy.

“Winnie was pulling my hair and yowling in my ear,” Cathy recalls of her normally mellow cat’s unusual behavior. “I would wake up and pass out again. Every time I passed out, Winnie would wake me up again.”

Cathy managed to rouse herself and dial 911, but the gas knocked her out before she could tell the operator what was going on. The dispatcher sent out a state trooper and sheriff’s deputies, who dragged the family onto the porch and into the fresh air. A firefighter found Winnie in a closet.

Everyone recovered after many hours in the hospital, where the dire nature of their situation became clear. “The deputy sheriff told me that if Winnie had waited five more minutes to get us up, we’d all be dead,” Cathy Keesling says. “I’m so proud of her.

“I guess because we saved her life, she saved ours.”

“The deputy sheriff told me that if Winnie had waited five more minutes to wake us up, we’d all be dead.”
—Cathy Keesling

For more stories: Tails of Love – AARP Magazine – Lifestyle

Four-year-old Charley, a West Highland white terrier in Atlanta, is not a search-and-rescue dog. In fact, when Charley made his lifesaving rescue last year, his owner wasn’t even aware that anyone needed help. One August day the little dog began urgently pacing and barking to be let out of the house. Owner Frances Gippert clicked Charley’s leash onto his collar and opened the front door. He dragged her away from their usual route and toward a yard three doors away, where Roy Monie lay semiconscious and badly bruised. Monie had fallen off a ladder and had suffered a brain hemorrhage. If Charley hadn’t found him—no one knows how—so that Gippert could call 911, Monie likely would have died. Since then, Monie and his family have embraced Gippert, who had lost both parents and her sister to cancer. Last year they all celebrated Christmas together. “This whole process has been very emotionally moving for me,” says Gippert, who was working from home after a difficult divorce. “It has changed my life. I just wanted to stay in my house, me and Charley,” she says. “Roy didn’t let that happen.”