Photo via Gore and Districts SPCA at Facebook.
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A dog who helps with education and orphaned animal care at a Gore, New Zealand shelter has adopted a tiny kitten and is even producing milk for her baby, despite never having puppies of her own.
Phoenix is a three year old Australian Kelpie sheep dog on staff with the Gore and Districts branch of SPCA New Zealand, where she works in education with schools and groups, and helps tend to orphaned animals. She also enjoys her job of herding sheep.
The young kitten she is mothering was found all alone at the dump last Friday, suffering an eye infection. The shelter is on the lookout for any siblings that may also be at the dump and for the mother cat if she is nearby.
According to a story about Phoenix and her kitten in The Southland Times:
[Gore and Districts SPCA] manager Tanya Rowling’s Australian kelpie Phoenix presented her new baby in the form of a three-week-old grey kitten.
The male kitten had been found at the dump on Friday and because it was so young and had eye damage Miss Rowling took it home to care for it.
On her return to the lounge to feed the kitten,she discovered it was missing.
“I walked into my room and there was Phoenix and the kitten all curled up on my bed,” she said.
The shelter wrote about Phoenix and her kitten at Facebook, saying:
“Phoenix is a great little mama, very protective of her ‘pup’. I knew Phoe likes to look after any baby animal, washing them etc., but this is the first time she’s produced milk for her little charge.”
“Phoe is around 3 years old, has never had pups, and her charge is around 3 weeks old. [It’s] so beautiful to watch them together.”
“Phoenix helps to “Teach” our new pups and dogs better social play, She is definitely the dominate after 3 years at Gore SPCA.”
Phoenix is Part of the SPCA team and is not available for adoption. The kitten will be made available for adoption when he is ready.
You can ‘like’ and follow Gore and Districts SPCA at Facebook.
Photo via Facebook
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