Like Harold and Maude or Oscar and Felix, some couples are just odd. Here, you'll find a few unexpected but heart-warmingly adorable animal pals.
Schnitzel, a wild boar piglet, is just one of the guys. The little piglet was left behind when a German farmer ran the rest of her herd off from a friend's garden, and now, she pals around with his five dogs.
Phillip Guelland, AFP / Getty Images
Another "boar-ing" pair: Manni, a five-week-old boar, likes nothing better than goofing around with Candy, a Jack Russell terrier. The piglet was found abandoned in a forest in western Germany, and is now hand-fed.
Sascha Schuermann, AFP / Getty Images
Fighting like cats and dogs? Not this pair! The Ohio barn cat simply walked up to the neighbors' dog and decided they would be friends.
Amy Sancetta, AP
Leader of the pack, Muemue, is a fallow deer fawn who was rejected by other animals in his joint enclosure at the Kecskemet Game Park in Hungary. A keeper brought him home and, to his surprise, found that his greyhound accepted him and even nursed the young fawn. Obviously, his new canine brothers and sisters adored him, too, though Muemue was returned to his original family about a month later.
Sandor Ujvari, MTI / AP
Sometimes, nature and nurture are one and the same. This dog, Honey, hadn't given birth in a year and a half when her owner brought home Precious, a six-week-old kitten. Upon hearing the kitten's cries, Honey began producing milk and nursing the tiny feline.
Scott Mason, The Winchester Star / AP
Maybe Busch Gardens is actually the happiest place on Earth -- how else can you explain this bizarre pairing? Bea, a three-year-old giraffe, and Wilma, an ostrich, have formed quite the friendship recently, preferring each other's company to hanging out with members of their own species.
Matt Marriott, Busch Gardens / AP
After she lost her own child, locals noticed this monkey mama caring for a tiny puppy. Here, you can see her holding her little one close when another monkey approached.
Channi Anand, AP
Willy, a 10-year-old Red River porcine, found himself brokenhearted in 2005 when his mate died, but bounced back after meeting this 16-year-old bongo antelope named Nicole at the Los Angeles Zoo. We can't blame him for moving on -- she's a looker!
Jaime Pham, Los Angeles Zoo / AP
Hard to believe a mother could reject this sweet tiger cub, but that was the case in 2008 at the Warsaw Zoo. Zoya, just three months old, was without a mother and without a friend, so a zoo employee brought in his three-month-old Alsatian puppy, Frida, to provide companionship.
Alik Keplicz, AP
Siberian tiger cub Prince is licked by his foster mother, a stray dog nicknamed Klava, at the zoo in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, Friday, Nov. 30, 2001. The tiger cub, who was nursed by the dog after his own mother ignored him, is out of danger. The dog suckled the cub for 30 days and officials say the baby is now healthy enough to switch to a diet of meat. The cub was born over a month ago, the zoo's first birth of the rare species.
AP
Cincinnati Zoo 
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you must be pretty dense if you don't realize how much we hate people like you posting.I always report you idiots.GO AWAY1
there are some jaguars down in jax.fla that aren,t doing much right now .she could hang out with them!!
They are so sweet,it's to bad they will be separated when they get older,seems very unfair.We have enough captive wild animals.We don't need more in captivity.They need to be in the wild where they belong
what wild?
what wild?
Its the cutest thing...Its sad that they will eventually be seperated. So we know that Nia will be going to a permanent home, but what happens to Cali? Hopefully its not back to the shelter.
Cali is the one going to the permenant home with the Watkins, after the year is up....Nia will remain a part of the zoo and become an ambassador to school aged children
Laurie - I know it is confusing, but I read that last line to mean Cali will be going home to live with Watkins permanently, not Nia. The sentence didn't identify who"she" is very well. I hope we're right!
Just goes to show that wild animals, whether they are tigers or tortoises, need some companionship. When man locks wild animals away in cages alone and out of their habitat we can imagine how crazy they must get being cut off from their natural world.
If you watch Wild Cat Diarys you will understand why this Cheetah can not be released back into the wild.......at least it will have a great beginning with the pup and a safe and good life, beats the alternative......
I think it is so sweet that these animals accept each other whole heartedly. If only people would do the same thing this world would be a better place.
Zoo animals are not captured wild, they are bred in captivity and kept in capivity, they know, no other life. These animals can never be "set free", they would not survive. It is comman practice to raise babies who are rejected by their mothers, or mothers that die along with another animal for companionship, usually a dog.
To me, the dog and cheeta story and picture above get the 'aaaawwww' phrase. Cute.
You are right these animals aren't captured wild,they are born in captivity where they don't belong,these animals have hundreds of miles of territories,not a few acres or god forbid a wire cage as some of them have to live.She is cute though
Would you PETA losers shut up? I hate your whining at every possible animal post there is. Use your brains a little bit, that's what they're there for. And there's this magical little thing, I'm not sure if you're familiar with it, but they call it "common sense".
What do animals do in the wild?
1. Sleep
2. Eat, drink
3. Mate
4. Play
What do they do in captivity? All of the above. But guess what else? Most have shots, so they can't get illnesses like they're wild counterparts. They don't have to worry about being hunted or having their cubs hunted. They don't have to worry about fighting over territory. They usually have a playmate and/or mate. If you put one of these animals in the wild, they can get killed, hunted, sick and die, starve to death, etc. Then guess what? There will be no animal. Dead, gone. Zoo's preserve them from these kind of dangers and they live MUCH longer, HAPPIER lives - they don't know any different, especially the ones bred in Zoo's. They're just as happy because they have everything they have in the wild and they don't have to do ANYTHING to get it. If they get sick, they're cured. If they're hungry, they're fed. Animals live so much longer and better in captivity. As much room to roam free? Maybe not. But they don't need to roam as much when everything they have is right there in an enclosure. Food, mate, family, territory, and so on. There are exceptions, YES. If an animal is being neglected the right amount of space, being neglected food or whatever, sick, abused, etc, then yes, that should have never happened to begin with. But when an animal, like the cheetah above, especially if BORN into this world, lives in a perfectly fine Zoo - it's just dandy to them.
Why are people so stupid?
There iz no need to be rude. unlike you most of us have a heart when it comez to animalz. i personally think you should be banned from postin on this site az well az from the site itz self. the story was a sweet and postively informin article. it left no room for negative rude postinz from an unfeelin cold hearted idoit like you. WE DON'T CARE WHAT YOU THINK. go else where. i bet there is a site for cold hearted stupid rude people like you, hope you can find it so you leave us alone.
11/18/09
I just love the stories of our animal friends. They serve as better examples
for living than some people; seems like the animals have wonderful social
skills in getting along and growing up around animals that are different from
themselves. Think man will ever develop the ability to do the same with
other people on the planet?
humans are animals too - those who put dogs & cats (dogs kill cats - never the other way around) together should live with animals that eat human. even same animals - you can't keep a child molester with children. no other words - just evil stupid.
The only this I can say to you Glove is, WOW you really are a complete moron!
My 16 year old black lab passed away last January. My 6 year old German Shorthair was devasted, wouldn't eat for days. We brought in a stray cat, and the dog just took to that cat, it was amazing the change in her. Now they are best buds and even sleep together. So cute.