Dogs are simply the best at being adoptive moms. When they’re presented with an orphaned baby, their maternal instincts kick right in, so a story about this comes as no surprise. But it’s not every day that you hear about a dog being the proud parent of a posse of opossums! She even carries them around on her back, just like a real opossum mama.
Last month, a dog got into a scuffle with an opossum in Brazil, and sadly, the opossum was killed. But someone found her little joeys, and gave them to Stephanie Maldonado to deal with.
She wanted to take them to a local wildlife rescue group, but they already had too many animals to take them in. So she undertook the task of hand-rearing the babies herself. Their eyes weren’t even open yet, and they needed to be bottle fed every two hours.
Thankfully, her dog, Pretinha, was happy to help. She was glad to mother them and keep them safe.
“It’s very nice to see all the care that she has with them, licking them all the time and nestling them,” Maldonado said on Facebook.
Though puppies do climb around a lot, once mom stands up, they are back on the ground. But not with Pretinha’s litter! They climb on and hold on, and this mama doesn’t mind taking them for piggyback rides.
It’s been about a month now, and the joeys are thriving. Maldonado hopes that when they are grown, they can be returned to the wild.
