The power of a mother's protective instinct

Against all odds, the sequence of photos show how a mother squirrel saves her young from a dog.

Little one cornered by dog:
Mother distracts dog:

Mother put up a fight with dog while baby gets away:

Mother and baby safe on the way up the tree trunk:

In an unrelated case, I wish to share the story of the chicken which was babysat by a female dog.

In one of my earlier posts, months ago, I mentioned about this chick which used to stand on top of the dog. Well, it has grown into a mother hen. SP tried a few fertilised eggs from somewhere and her immediate reaction was to reject those while keeping her own unfertilised ones. Somehow, two fertilized eggs escaped her scrutiny and hatched into two chicks, much to the surprise and joy of the foreign workers at the factory.

Not satisfied with this experiment, SP brought in a cockerel and nature took its course. This couple's eggs later hatched 10 chicks! There were some fatalities due to lack of space and a kampong style chicken cover made of bamboo is used to separate the chicks from the mother hen. Poor kau kau (Burmese for dog) is being bullied by the cockerel, out of jealousy! Again, nature has its way of showing who is boss.

The moral of this little story is that something as common as hatching chicks, done by our amateurist efforts, can still be exciting in our modern lifestyle. No, they are not about to give up their daytime jobs.