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A Preemie Deer
 
A precious little miracle to add some cheer to your day...which we all need!

Here is a great short story with a few sweet photos. This little premature deer is named Rupert and is living at Tiggywiggles Hospital in England. Fitting name, right?

A truly hungry cat! Click or copy and paste the link to get a clearer pic of what's going on.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dLx_DWSaq2U
 

What a trooper!

Photo and story: Caters News / ZUMA Press

A red-footed tortoise was found -- minus one of her four feet -- in the wild in San Mateo County, California and brought into the local ASPCA. Vets decided the least intrusive/most economical/flat-out hilarious-est way to help the three-legged lass was to strap her atop the undercarriage of a toy Tonka truck. The result: a surprisingly huge amount of mobility for the lil' critter, who now pushes off with her back legs for power and uses her one front foot for steering... though she's probably a little bit shell-shocked by the change.

Nicknamed Tonka, natch, the tortoise was adopted by a local surfer dude who brags that Tonka likes going for walks and snacking on tomatoes from his garden.
 

This one isn't new but somehow just crossed our desktop.
SO worth a viewing!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wMppUgSQNPU
 

A must watch -- inspiring doggie who was born without her two front legs. She has figured out how to get around and is
inspiring humans to "get on with it!"
http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/us/2009/04/10/
mizutani.hi.two.leg.dog.khon

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0bt9xBuGWgw&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2aHCnTVuwg4

Have you seen the one about the elephant and the dog? Enjoy!

http://video.aol.com/video-detail/the-animal-odd-couple/
2322394529
 

Talk about heartwarming! There is a whole set of photos of Anjara, the chimp who has been mothering a series of abandoned felines, as reported in the UK's The Sun. Click the photo or link below to see them all, along with the story.

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/
article1793356.ece
 

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-521777/
Paternal-dog-Billy-takes-unusual-kid.html

And one more! This one is about a very smart kitten
and what she does with sneakers.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7184817739112624074

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TMCf7SNUb-Q

This is quite amazing.  These dolphins are clearly smarter than many humans I've met.

The attached video is of dolphins playing with silver colored 'air-rings' which they have the ability to make under water to play with. It isn't known how they learn this, or if it's an inbred ability.

As if by magic the dolphin does a quick flip of its head and a silver ring appears in front of its pointed beak. The ring is a solid, donut shaped bubble about 2-ft across, yet it doesn't rise to the surface of the water! It stands upright in the water like a magic doorway to an unseen dimension. The dolphin then pulls a small silver donut from the larger one. Looking at the twisting ring for one last time a bite is taken from it, causing the small ring to collapse into a thousands of tiny bubbles which head upward towards the water's surface. After a few moments the dolphin creates another ring to play with. There also seems to be a separate mechanism for producing small rings, which a dolphin can accomplish by a quick flip of its head.

An explanation of how dolphins make these silver rings is that they are "air-core vortex rings."  Invisible, spinning vortices in the water are generated from the tip of a dolphin's dorsal fin when it is moving rapidly and turning. When dolphins break the line, the ends are drawn together into a closed ring. The higher velocity fluid around the core of the vortex is at a lower pressure than the fluid circulating farther away. Air is injected into the rings via bubbles released from the dolphin's blow hole. The energy of the water vortex is enough to keep the bubbles from rising for a reasonably few seconds of play time.

NOTE: If you haven't seen this one, we urge you to check it out. It's truly fun and almost other-worldly.

THE BEARS AND I

Black bears typically have two cubs, rarely one or three. In 2007, in northern New Hampshire, a black bear sow gave birth to five healthy young. There were two or three reports of sows with as many as four cubs but five was, and is, extraordinary. I learned of them shortly after they emerged from their den and set myself a goal of photographing all five cubs with their mom, no matter how much time and effort was involved. I knew the trail they followed on a fairly regular basis, usually shortly before dark. After spending nearly four hours a day, seven days a week, for six weeks I had that once in a lifetime opportunity and photographed them in the shadows and dull lighting of the evening. Due to these conditions the photograph is a bit noisy as I had to use the equivalent of a very fast film speed on my digital camera. The print is properly focused and well exposed with all six bears posing as if they were in a studio for a family portrait. 

  (Read on….) 

I stayed in touch with other people who saw the bears during the summer and into the fall hunting season. All six bears continued to thrive. As time for hibernation approached, I found still more folks who had seen them and everything remained OK. I stayed away from the bears as I was concerned that they might become habituated to me, or to people in general, as approachable friends.  This could be dangerous for both man and animal. After Halloween I received no further reports and could only hope the bears survived until they hibernated.

This spring, before the snow disappeared, all six bears came out of their den and wandered the same familiar territory they trekked in the spring of 2007. I saw them before mid April and dreamed nightly of taking another family portrait, an improbable second once in a lifetime photograph. On April 25, 2008 I achieved my dream.  (Read on …)
 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KQhPMwMlm_w
 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1kKnNyJvRAY
 

http://v.blog.sohu.com/u/vw/1437596