I was surfing the internet the other day when an msnbc.com headline caught my eye "Dog nursing tiger cubs 'a miracle,' zoo owner says" I clicked to check it out. Sure enough a golden retriever named Isabella adopted three tiger cubs at the Safari Zoological Park. The cubs' mother rejected them and so Isabella who had recently weaned pupplies, stepped up and took over. She's nursing them and taking care of them in the same way the cubs mother would have done. A nice story like this seems to have caught the attention of many bloggers.

Secure Pet wrote "The Safari Park Zoological Park in Caney, Kansas experienced quite a stir last month when a rare white tiger mother refused contact with her newborn cubs. To the rescue was the park’s Golden Retriever Isabella who took over their care and feeding. Isabella became an overnight celebrity."

The Intelligent Dog's Guide to a Troubled World provided more detail on how things came to pass. "So the next day, when the cubs were looking for some motherly care, Harvey introduced them to Isabella — an impossibly puppy-faced year-old retriever still producing milk from her own pregnancy. The protective pooch immediately took to feeding, licking and cleaning the cubs as if they were her own — and has continued to do so throughout the week."

This story reminds me of how one of my cats was found abandoned, because she was nursed and cared for by a foster cat who had just weaned her kittens. Apparently I'm not the only one who had their memory triggered by reading about Isabella. PetsitUSA.com shared, "When I was a kid, my dog Dumb Dumb adopted my cat Fradey Cat’s kittens when she was hit by a car. She mothered them as if they were her own. This dog though, has some bigger babies on her paws…"

Lest you think that this is for a first for Safari Zoolical Park msnbc.com provided some additional history. "Tom Harvey and his wife, Allie, have previously had different sets of puppies reared by a lion at their zoo, which specializes in endangered species. And in May 2007, reports surfaced from Beijing that a farm dog nursed three newborn tiger triplets."

Alex Elliot also blogs at Formula Fed and Flexible Parenting