Ba Boo is a three-year-old Shar Pei from Kodak, Tennessee. She lives in a nice house with a nice yard and a nice owner, Sherry Brandt.
“She’s just a sweet dog,” Sherry told WBIR.com. “She only likes to be at home, she doesn’t like to leave at all.”
Ba Boo’s life was nearly perfect, it seems, until Sherry’s daughter brought home a kitten she’d found in a parking lot. The kitten was abandoned, and Sherry’s daughter and granddaughter said they couldn’t leave the little cat on her own. They wanted to keep her. Sherry feared for the worst.
“[Ba Boo] has been chasing a loose cat in the neighborhood, and all the bunnies,” she said. “So I didn’t think she’d like the cat.”
They took the kitten home, named her Ally, and held their breath when Ba Boo got a load of the new member of the household. The dog had two choices: She could be mean to the kitten, or make friends. Ba Boo surprised everyone by taking another route. She became a mom.
“One day I saw her trying to nurse, and I thought, ‘Good luck with that,'” Sherry told WBIR.com. “But she was sitting there purring like crazy, and she was just putting her little paws into the dog, pushing and purring.”
All well and good. Lots of kitties try to get milk from foster mom of any species — it’s pretty cute when it happens. But Ba Boo figured she could do the kitten one better. Sherry noticed it first — after a few weeks, Ba Boo was looking a little swollen.
“I thought, she couldn’t have milk because she’s never had puppies, she’s never been bred.”
Ah, but Ba Boo did have milk. Little Ally had done a number on the mothering impulse of this big, friendly dog, and now the two are as inseparable as a cat and her kitten, or a dog and her puppy.
“Ally seemed to have faith that this was her mom and that she’d get milk,” said Sherry. “Ba Boo seems to believe that she’s the cat’s mom. It’s just a miracle that she got milk and she is nursing this kitten.”
WBIR.com reports that Ba Boo also bathes the kitten and cleans her, and even disciplines her when the going gets rough.
“We’re planning on keeping them together,” said Sherry. “They seem very content. She looks at me very serious when she nurses, like this is so serious, I’m caring for my baby.”
Via WBIR.com
