Sunday, October 25, 2009

Talk about an extended family!


It seems that a cat and dog in China have taken parenthood further than their species would normally do.

A dog and a cat which have recently given birth in China are taking it in turns to 'childmind' for each other.

Both animals are owned by Gao Shunhong, of Fushun, Liaoning province, who adopted the dog two years ago and the cat one year ago.

"They get along together incredibly well for a cat and dog," he told the Fushun Daily newspaper.

Two weeks ago, the cat gave birth to a litter of two kittens, and three days later, the dog produced a litter of six puppies.




"Both mothers put their cubs together in the same box, and rotate in nursing them," said Gao.

"When the dog is out, the cat will lie down and nurse the kittens and puppies, and when the dog came back, the cat would go out, leaving the nursing job to the dog.

"If both mothers are in, the cubs can get quite mixed up, with the cat nursing the puppies, and the dog nursing the kittens.

"It's really odd - but a great picture of harmony."


All together, now - Awwwww!



Peter

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

"Awwwwwww" indeed. How cuuuute!

Mikael said...

What would be interesting would be seeing how the puppies/kittens end up behaving as they grow up... will they be taught by both mothers? Will we get cats wagging their tails, dogs rubbing against legs, cats guarding the door and alerting when strangers approach, dogs hissing/batting to show displeasure, etc? ;)

Anonymous said...

I'm not surprised. Many years ago, I lived on a farm in Tenn, where we had both cats and dogs. One year our cat had 4 kittens, then died when they were about 3 weeks old.

Our dog was only just over 1yr old and had never been bred. Amazingly, she took those kittens in and nursed them long enough to save their lives!

Mark@Bismarck said...

It's a sign of the Apocalypse I tell ya! Dogs and cats lying together! (quote from Ghost Busters)