First we had Knut, and then Flocke, both polar bear cubs abandoned by their mothers and raised by zookeepers.
Now we have a newborn tiger cub at Germany’s Stroehen Zoo, born last weekend and rejected by its mother. The cub is being nursed by a dachshund named Bessi, who belongs to one of the zookeepers. Bessi is taking over motherly duties and guarding the little tiger, which so far has not been named.
The papers here are saying that Bessi has “adopted” the cub, which kind of pisses me off. I mean, I recently got married in Germany and that required a ton of paper work, and you’d think adoption would be equally bureaucratic, but it seems Bessi has had an easy time of it.