Today's Extreme K9 is Nettle the Jack Russell Terrier with a very interesting babysitter...
"Shrewsbury, England:
Whenever Nettle takes a break from her four pups, Mabel the chicken hustles to where the puppies are sleeping. Like a true mother hen, she fluffs her feathers and plops down on the puppies. Mabel tucks them in under her warm body as if the pups are a brood of chicks.
"At certain times, a hen will sit on anything that's warm and nestlike," says chicken behavior expert Bob Bailey. Gentle Mabel will cluck softly to her nest of "hatchlings" until their mom returns.
Mabel is a caretaker, but she's also a disciplinarian. Sometimes the puppies rambunctiously play with Mabel's feathers. "If they get too rough," says Edward Tate, the farmer who brought Mabel into the house after a horse injured the hen's foot, "Mabel gives them a glare and a gentle peck." Don't mess with this mother hen!"
Article from: National Geographic Kids Nov. 2010 issue, p. 14, Amazing Animals section
Pic of Mabel sitting on pups from: http://charleykanesfunhouse.com/2010/03/11/mabel-the-confused-chicken/
Pic of Mabel with one of the pups from: http://www.fwi.co.uk/blogs/rural-life/2010/03/chicken-in-a-dog-basket.html
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