When Kerry McKinnon went to check on her golden retriever, Asha, who had spent the night on their back porch outside, she was lovingly surprised to find that her sweet dog had saved the life of an abandoned baby koala.
In the early Australian morning, Kerry’s husband asked her to come out onto their back porch to take a look at something:
“It was quite early in the morning, and my husband yelled out to me to come have a look at something,” Kerry told news.com.au. “I didn’t know what he was talking about at first, but then I saw this tiny baby koala snuggled on top of Asha.”
Kerry was surprised, not only to find a baby koala on Asha, but to see her pup’s reaction.
“I just burst out laughing. Poor Asha didn’t know what to think; she just kept looking at me with such a confused look,” Kerry recalled. “She looked a bit guilty when I came out to see what was going on. Her expression was hilarious.”
While her sweet golden retriever looked a little confused, she also looked happy and relaxed as she was letting the cute little baby koala snuggle and stay warm on her back.
“She kept looking back at the koala bear, but she wasn’t trying to get him off her or anything. She was happy to let him snuggle into her,” Kerry said.
The McKinnon’s aren’t exactly sure what happened, but they believe that the baby koala became separated from its mother and then snuggled up in Asha’s fur during the night.
“I think the koala bear baby fell out of his mum’s pouch and didn’t know what to do. He would have just wandered over to our back porch and seen the dogs in their beds, then decided to snuggle in Asha’s fur because it’s nice and warm,” she said.
Kerry was grateful that the cute baby koala found its way to Asha, as she didn’t think it would have lasted the night on its own in the wild surrounding their home.
“Asha definitely saved the koala’s life by keeping him warm. He would have died out there if left alone all night. The poor thing could have been taken by a fox or something too,” Kerry said.
Kerry said that when they finally went to try and put the baby koala in blanket, that it “wasn’t easy” as the baby made a “huge fuss” and wanted to stay on Asha’s back.
“I think dogs have that protective instinct. The koala didn’t want to leave Asha’s back. When we took the koala off to wrap it in a blanket, it hissed at me and carried on,” Kerry said.
Kerry and her husband brought the koala to be checked out by a vet and are happy to report that the little one is doing well and is now in the hands of a local ‘koala carer’ until it grows and can be released safely into the wild.
“I think it would have been happy to have just slept there all day,” Kerry said about the baby koala clinging to Asha. “It was really an amazing animal friendship to see and so uniquely Australian.”
We are grateful that Asha was so sweet; saving the baby koala’s life by letting him sleep on her back during the whole night.
You are Loved.
