Unlikely Friendships : 47 Remarkable Stories From the Animal Kingdom (24 page)

{I
SRAEL
, 2000}

On the south side of Eilat in Israel, where the Red Sea creeps onto sandy, tourist-packed shores, a shaggy dog took a leap of faith.

His name was Joker, and one warm day in the spring of 2000 he simply showed up at Dolphin Reef, a beachy tourist attraction specializing in encounters with the popular marine mammals. He belonged to a family in town, but he seemed more at home on the Reef's wooden pier overlooking the sea.

At first, the owners weren't happy about their canine visitor. They were concerned that he'd chase the cats, chickens, and peacocks that lived on the property. But Joker kept coming—traveling every day from wherever he laid his head at night—and never
raised a paw to the other animals. In fact, he seemed utterly disinterested in all species but one: the dolphins.

Dolphin Reef has a population of eight bottlenose dolphins all fathered by a male named Cindy, the so-called Don Juan of the pod. (Yes, “Cindy” is a male.) At times the animals have been given free access to the open sea and allowed to choose between the Reef and the wild. So while they do encounter humans and receive food, their behaviors remain quite natural—including their play.

Those acrobatics held Joker's interest for many days. He sat on the dock and observed the dolphins as they gathered and squealed and splashed and rocketed through the waves. Then one day during feeding time, Joker abandoned his dry observation post and leaped in.

The dolphins appeared to welcome the dog into their world, so after that first leap his swims became routine. For a time, the Reef staff tied Joker up during feedings to keep him from distracting the dolphins as they ate. Soon the pup realized that he was welcome in the water any time but during a meal. He learned to read the aquatic mammals' signals and “would jump in only when the dolphins were teasing him or inviting him,” says Tal Fisher, one of the dolphin trainers.

Joker became a bit of a star, and people who saw him making his daily sojourn from town would pick him up—despite his salty-dog stink—and drop him at his favorite spot. He always headed straight for the wooden
pier above the water, where his playful friends would greet him.

Eventually, the dog's owners realized Joker was happiest at the Reef, and they let the mutt move in permanently with the facility owners so he'd have easy access to his aquatic playmates. To this day, he spends many nights sleeping on the dock, ready to start the morning by barking at the dolphins as they congregate below. Then he jumps into the water to frolic with them. “They react by swimming around him and splashing with their tails,” says Tal. “They even speak to him.” How dog barks and dolphin squeaks translate across species is a mystery. But the mutually curious animals seem to have discovered a shared language in play.

{P
ENNSYLVANIA
, U.S.A., 2008}

Who hasn't wondered at the amazing partnerships between seeing-eye dogs and the people they help navigate through a dark world? Dogs are specially trained to be the eyes of the blind, and remarkable friendships ensue from this very intimate experience between two species.

But have you ever heard of a seeing-eye cat? Here's one case, of a tabby named Libby. She was not only self-trained to assist the blind, her charge wasn't even human—she was canine.

Libby, a stray cat, was adopted by Terry and Debra Burns of northeastern Pennsylvania in 1994. No bigger than a baseball when the Burnses brought her home, the tiny cat adapted well to her new surroundings, including Cashew, the lab mix that was
already living there. Raised together, the animals got along fine, but for most of their lives they had limited interactions.

But around age 12, Cashew began to lose her sight. And as the dog's vision degenerated, Libby the cat suddenly became protective of her lifelong housemate. She'd bed down in the door of the dog kennel where Cashew slept, seeming like a devoted caregiver as the old girl napped behind her. She'd hang out just beneath Cashew's chin as the unseeing pooch maneuvered through house or yard. Together they'd approach a food dish or find a sunny spot on the patio to share. Everywhere Cashew went Libby was there to guide her. They seemed to communicate, Terry says. “It was as if Libby would say, ‘Hey, watch out for that bench there,' or, ‘Here's your water dish!'” The cat also began showing up along the route where Terry walked Cashew, sometimes watching from a distance, other times padding along beside them—“letting the dog know she was nearby, watching over her,” he says. “They only got closer and closer as time went on.”

When Cashew finally passed away, at nearly 15 years old, Libby seemed to wonder where he had disappeared to, and would go looking in the dog's old haunts. She never took to the other family dog in the same affectionate way. No other companion, it would seem, could ever replace the unlikely one she'd had in that old blind mutt.

{C
ANADA
, 1992}