This golden retriever is caring for 3 African painted dog pups at the zoo because their mother won’t care for them

An Indiana zoo recently welcomed a litter of endangered African painted dogs. Only three survived thanks to an unlikely surrogate mother. While African painted dogs typically live with a pack of like-minded predators in the wild, the dog caring for them in the zoo is a golden retriever.

The Potawatomi Zoo announced last week that eight cubs were born at the zoo in September. But the South Bend Zoo said in a news release that their parents, Blue and Morris, were not caring for the babies.

“Within 12 hours of the puppies at the Potawatomi Zoo being born, the animal care team knew that the wolves would not be able to successfully raise the puppies,” the zoo said. “Blu was an inexperienced mother and did not treat her as she should.” way of caring for her cubs, and Morris is following her lead.”

So zoo staff consulted professionals to help develop a breeding plan for the African Painted Dog in the United States. There are fewer than 7,000 adult painted dogs left in the wild, and they are considered endangered due to human-wildlife conflict, habitat fragmentation and disease, the zoo said.

Zoo staff typically try to be as hands-off as possible so the wolves can raise their pups as they would in the wild. The zoo says this is often successful and the cubs can “understand the complex social structure of their species”.

But in this case, the team decided staff would have to raise the litter by hand with the help of another animal.

The group recommends not bottle-feeding pups and instead finding a surrogate dog to help care for them, as they are typically raised within the canine social structure.

The Indiana Animal Welfare Commission linked the zoo to a golden retriever named Cassie who had recently given birth and was producing milk that she could also feed to the painted puppies.

Cassie brought her own puppies to the zoo and immediately adopted the painted puppies as her own.

The zoo said the first week of their lives was “difficult” when she began caring for the cubs, with the care team working 24 hours a day.

“As with the young animals, some of the painted puppies were not strong enough to survive, but three of them survived, despite the special attention given by Cassie and zoo staff,” the zoo said.

They haven’t named them yet, but they’re calling the surviving cubs blue, red and orange – colors used to track them since birth.

The zoo is building a home for the three puppies, alongside the zoo’s adult painted dogs. They decided not to integrate them with other painted dogs because the older dogs “did not show an appropriate active interest in the puppies, so plans were changed.” Their plan was to reintegrate them when they were older the lives of others.

“This has been a mentally exhausting and challenging journey for the team, but the zoo’s mission is to work hard to protect wild species,” the zoo said. “Sometimes the journey goes smoothly, and sometimes extraordinary measures are required. These three are healthy, active The cubs are just the beginning of this story, and the zoo hopes to share more positive updates on their milestones in the future.”

The dogs, also known as African wild dogs or African painted wolves, are native to sub-Saharan Africa and live in large family groups dominated by males and females, according to the zoo.

They are smaller, about 29 to 43 inches long, but can run as fast as 44 miles per hour and hunt larger prey such as antelope, according to the International Fund for Animal Welfare. They coordinate hunts with the pack and are successful, with 60% of hunts ending in a catch.

Now 11 weeks old, the cub is thriving in Kassy’s care.

“We look forward to getting them into their own space where they can learn to draw dogs for their families,” the zoo said.