This Child

This Child
by Susan Aglukark

This child my fellow human being
This child let me walk with you
This child afraid to be alone
This child let me be with you.

This (wo)man searching for the truth
This child finding her way home
This song soaring in my heart
This land a journey still unknown.

Journey your trail my only hope
Hope is all that I can find
Child you’ll never be alone
I’m forever by your side.

Adoption Update

We met with Helen, our social worker, last Thursday to update our home study and review what documents we need to replace/update. I was glad to find out that she had our original fingerprint card, so we don't have to get them taken again!

We will have to get new Interpol/RCMP checks, local police checks, medicals, references (only 2), new copies of birth & marriage certificates, and our passports need renewing. Our goal is to complete our dossier in 4 weeks. (Helen suggested 6, but I am optimistic!). Still not sure if we'll beat Ethiopia's court closure ... but we might as well go for it!

Will keep you posted!

Cross-Species Adoptions - Dog & Squirrel

For about as long as she can remember, Debby Cantlon says, friends and strangers have brought her animals in need. So it wasn't much of a surprise when someone asked her if she'd care for a newborn squirrel found at the base of a tree somewhere near Renton.

When Cantlon took in the tiny creature and began caring for him, she found herself with an unlikely nurse's aide: her pregnant Papillon, Mademoiselle Giselle. Finnegan was resting in a nest in a cage just days before Giselle was due to deliver her puppies. Cantlon and her husband watched as the dog dragged the squirrel's cage twice to her own bedside before she gave birth. Cantlon was concerned, yet ultimately decided to allow the squirrel out and the inter-species bonding began.

Two days after giving birth, mama dog Giselle allowed Finnegan to nurse; family photos and a videotape show her encouraging him to suckle alongside her litter of five pups. Now, Finnegan mostly uses a bottle, but still snuggles with his "siblings" in a mosh pit of puppies, rolling atop their bodies and sinking in deeply for a nap.

I want THIS job!

SICHUAN , China -- One zoo in southwest China has its hands full with 16 baby pandas. The Sichuan Wolong Panda Protection and Breed Center is dealing with the results of a breeding boom -- 16 pandas have been born since July, 2006. The brood includes five sets of twins. The cubs are weighed and measured every five days. The heaviest tips the scale at just over 24 pounds, while the lightest weighs about 11 pounds. The pandas are due to stop suckling by February, 2007 - just about the time they'll start learning to walk. Once weaned, the panda cubs will attend panda kindergarten. In the meantime, more little ones are expected at the center since 38 giant pandas were artificially impregnated.

Cross-Species Adoptions: Cat & Skunks

One week after being born, six baby skunks were abandoned by their mother. Luckily, we had just weaned five kittens off of our resident farm cat a day before and hoped that perhaps she might take them on as her own. She was reluctant at first, but she let them nurse - a positive sign. Two weeks have gone by and the six little "Stinkers" are thriving and their new mom couldn't be happier. She has become quite devoted to them and even carries them around to show them off to visitors.

Cross-Species Friendship: Deer & Hare

Two of the world's most renowned shy and timid creatures have found each other in safe companionship.....through the lens of Tanja Askani, Alberta, Canada.

Cross-Species Adoptions - Hippo & Tortoise

I was wading through my Inbox and found a number of emails with stories and pictures of cross-species adoption in the animal world ... Thought I'd share.

NAIROBI (AFP) - A baby hippopotamus that survived the tsunami waves on the Kenyan coast has formed a strong bond with a giant male century-old tortoise, in an animal facility in the port city of Mombassa , officials said.

The hippopotamus, nicknamed Owen and weighing about 300 kilograms (650 pounds), was swept down Sabaki River into the Indian Ocean , then forced back to shore when tsunami waves struck the Kenyan coast on December 26, before wildlife rangers rescued him. "It is incredible. A-less-than-a-year-old hippo has adopted a male tortoise, about a century old, and the tortoise seems to be very happy with being a 'mother'," ecologist Paula Kahumbu, who is in charge of Lafarge Park, told AFP."After it was swept and lost its mother, the hippo was traumatized. It had to look for something to be a surrogate mother. Fortunately, it landed on the tortoise and established a strong bond. They swim, eat and sleep together," the ecologist added. "The hippo follows the tortoise exactly the way it follows its mother. If somebody approaches the tortoise, the hippo becomes aggressive, as if protecting its biological mother," Kahumbu added.

"The hippo is a young baby, he was left at a very tender age and by nature, hippos are social animals that like to stay with their mothers for four years," he explained.