A dog’s instinct saved a baby koala.
Recently, Kerry McKinnon of Strathdownie, in western Victoria, received a surprise from her golden retriever Asha, a situation that is probably impossible for any other dog owner in the world.
Temperatures in the region sometimes drop to -5 degrees Celsius in the early hours of the day. And not all animals have such a warm fur coat to keep them going in this climate.
“It was very early in the morning, and my husband yelled at me to come and see something,” said 45-year-old Kerry. “At first, I didn’t know what he was talking about, but then I saw this little koala curled up on Asha.”
Kerry admitted that the moment had caught her off guard and that she didn’t exactly support her dog’s heroism. “I just laughed. Poor Asha didn’t know what to think, she was just looking at me with a confused look, ”added McKinnon.
“She kept looking at the koala but didn’t try to take it away from her or anything. She was happy to let him snuggle inside. ”
There will always be a mystery of how the koala got attached to Asha. The most plausible explanation is that the adorable creature separated from its mother because she was still young enough to live alone. “I think baby Koala fell from his mother’s bag and didn’t know what to do. He would simply have wandered to our back porch, then decided to curl up in Asha’s fur because the weather was nice and warm. ”
“Asha definitely saved the life of the koala by keeping it warm. I would have died there if I had been alone all night. The poor could have been taken by a fox or something. Kerry said “it was not easy to separate the two because the koala made a lot of noise when we tried to pull it from Asha’s back.”
The woman said little ‘Joey’ was fine, however. After being examined by a veterinarian, a local koala caregiver took the baby into his care until he could be released into his natural habitat.
“I think dogs have this protective instinct. The Koala didn’t want to leave Asha’s back. ”